# 



LEISURE HOUR SERIES 



FLY-LEAVES 



BY 



V^ • 1^ • V-/ • 



^ 



HOLT&WlLLIAMS PUBLISHE 



New Yorlr 










UiuUu- 1 

ontertaiiii] 
cloth cave 
handy for 
contents ( 
shelves. 




Qm^^J^Jt^m- 



lES. 



.lAMS ar 

is lig^ht an 
. in tiexibl' 
le they ar< 
t, either ii. 
the library 



Book 



J'. Kveiwig Mail. 



ir the entire pr. 



. Reminds 
arKCUci strongly' 



MY LIT- 
" Sure to 
•'A story 
•'A very i 

SMOKE. 
•' Two or 

fi'ssiojial earei 

•■ Unites 
us of soino o 
rescMiibles." — 

'"Turgcn 

••A masterly and brilliant novel."— ^ 

FLV- LEAVES. A volnme of verses by (! S. Galverley. 

•■ Often as we read his \olnm(> did we biirst into that spontaneous, solitary laughter, 
whieh is the highest of all possible testiiu(jnies to a humorist" .s power. It was aggravat 
ing, doubtless, when one's feelings had been stirred l)y some unmistakably beautiful 
])oetry. by some bright ))icture of nature, or jiathetic deseription of feeling, to find, time 
after time, that one had been cruelly hoaxed; .... [yet] should wc <iuote one of 
Ihe pieces complained of. to show how great was the offenee, the court would certainly 
be dissolved in laughter, and the siccused would escajie.''— io/K/o/i Spectator. 

"He comyiels us to la:agh. ev(>n unseasonably We wish that some of 

those i)rolilie small poets, against whom we are forever taking up oiir ])arable, would 
write as good poetry in earnest as Mr. Calycrley does in play. . . . This is^excellent 
f(joling.'' — London Athence.mn. 

" i\ real i)oet, with a cross-streak of burlesquo." — N. Y. Erening Mail. 

"The most amusing of versifiers. . . Theiv is nothing in the once famous ' H> 
jectcd Addresses' equal to ' The Wanderers' in the book now lying before us, as a speci- 
men of pure parody. . . The little book deserves to be read from cover to cover, ari(i 
its proper place (we may say for once with fitness) is on every drawing-room table. " 
— Chambers's Journal. 
FATHERS AND SONS. P-y i.^enkf. $1.25. 

THE MAN ^A^ITH THE BROKEN EAR. By E. About. $1.25. 

HERMANN AGH A. By W. Cifiord rALGHAVE, author of " Travels in Cen 
tral Arabia." (Nearly ready.) 
A thrilling narrative of Eastern life and adventure, said to be partly autobiographical. 

*^.* Any of Mt'ssrs. Tloi/r &; WihJ.iAMYi' puhlkutions ivill he sent, post-paid, to any 
post-ufflre in the United Sltdex, on rcreipt of the advertised price. Persons in the coua 
Iri/rnn thus re; ivc hn,,l.s u-ii},<iui dl/lii-iillij. 



4 



1 1 \v tliinkini: people liavo Hi.l . 'iltl roiui all Llu- 

p.ipi.'rs." The intention of doin^ soniothingr to satisfy this wish has led to the cstabli>h- 
aicnt of TnK Wkkk. 

The plan of the p^iier is to impartially present the best utterances of the press, both 
oi America and Europe, on subjects of the greatest interest. The articles selected n- 
gmupcd under the topics of which they treat, so that each suljject is presented in ni;; 
Aspects . 

It is plain that the whole truth is more apt to be teamed from a collection of state 
inents fi-oni all sides, than from any statement from a sin^^le side, and that a pajicr 
jjfiving all sides is apt to cultivate catholicity of sympathies and a capacity for sound ami 
independent judgment. One inevitable tendency of newsjiapcrs is to tempt readers to 
take their oi)iuions at second-hand from editors instead of forming them for themselves, 
and to view all subjects from the standpoint of some particular political party or religion- 
-ect. Any influence that The Week may exert will tend to counteract this. 

A> the plan described commends the periodical yiincipally to readersof culture, >vhi 
veiiuire to bo regularly informed in matters of Literature and Art, about one-half of tli 
paper is devoted to those departments, including Science, Music, and tlie Drama. 

It i^ intended, as far as space will permit, to explain all new discoveries and 
theories of general interest. 

An effort is made to give the information and criticism ni 
new books as are not strictly technical. 

In addition to the departments above enumerated, The Week will generally coii 
tain something of what is best in fiction, poetry, and social criticism. y^ 

Price, Four Dollars a year in advance. Clergymen and 
Teachers, Three Dollars. Trial Subscriptions, Four Nuni- 
bers, Twenty-five Cents. Single copies, Ten Cents. Speci- 
mens free on application. Where Clubs prefer, the Pub- 
lishers supply the books they issue instead of extra copies 
of the paper. For Club rates, see specimen copy. 

Remittances should be sent by P. O. Orders, Cheeks. 
Drafts, or Registered Letters. Otherwise they are at the 
risk of the sender. Address 

THE WEEK, 

HOLT & WILLIAMS, Publishers, 

'JS Bond Streetf New York. 



^ 



LEISURE HOUR SERIES. 



FLY LEAVES 



BY 



C. S. O.lJL^jxa:^ 



With additions from the author's earlier volume of 
" Verses and Iranslations" 




NEW YORK 

HOLT & WILLIAMS 

1872 



PUBLISHER'S NOTE. 

A few people with a keen scent for good things 
have for some time amused themselves with the oc- 
casional copies, brought over by tourist?, of a little 
volume, now in its fourth edition in England, called 
"Verses and Translations by C. S. C." Those who 
knew this book were well pleased to see, this Spring, 
the announcement in the English papers of " Fly 
Leaves, by C. S. C." The announcements were 
soon followed by highly complimentary reviews, in 
some of which the author's name was given in full 
as C. S. Calverley. 

The present volume contains the " Fly Leaves," 
and all of the earlier volume except the Trans- 
lations. It was not thought that the translations 
would present enough novelty or originality to 
justify their reproduction. 

June^ 1872. 



CONTENTS. 













PAGB 


-Morning 


I 


Evening 


. 








4 


Shelter 


. 








6 


In the Gloaming 


« 








8 


The Palace 


. 








13 


Peace 


. 








17 


The Arab 


. 






19 


Lines on Hearing thi 


Organ 




22 


Changed 


. 




29 


First Love 








32 


Wanderers 


. 






36 


Sad Memories 










39 


Companions 


. 








42 


Ballad 


. 








. 48 


Precious Stones 


. 








. 51 


Disaster 


. 








. 56 


Contentment 


. 








. 59 


The Schoolmaster 


. 








. 63 


Arcades Ambo 


. 








66 


Waiting 


• 








. 69 


Play 


, , 








. 71 



vi CONTENTS. 

PAGK 

Love 74 

Thoughts at a Railway Station . . . .78 

Ow THE Brink 81 

"Forever" . . ^ 86 

Under the Trees 89 

Motherhood . 92 

Mystery 95 

Flight 99 

On the Beach 104 

Lovers, and a Reflection . . • . .108 

The Cock and The Bull 113 

Visions 121 

Gemini and Virgo 126 

" There Stands a City " 134 

Striking 138 

Voices of the Night 141 

Lines Suggested by the 14TH of February . . 144 

A, B, C. 146 

To Mrs. Goodchild 148 

Ode — ' On a Distant Prospect ' of Making a 

Fortune 153 

Isabel 157 

Lines Suggested by the 14TH of February. . 160 

" Hic ViR, Hic Est " 162 

Beer 167 

Ode to Tobacco 175 

Dover to Munich 178 

Charades 189 

Proverbial Philosophy 212 

Carmen S^eculare 220 

Dirge . 229 



MORNING. 

^'T^IS the hour when white-horsed Day 
Chases Night her mares away; 
When the Gates of Dawn (they say) 

Phoebus opes : 
And I gather that the Queen 
May be uniformly seen, 
Should the weather be serene, 

On the slopes. 



When the ploughman, as he goes 
Leathern-gaitered o'er the snows, 
From his hat and from his nose 

Knocks the ice; 

I 



MORNING. 

And the panes are frosted o'er, 
And the lawn is crisp and hoar, 
As has been observed before 
Once or twice. 

When, arrayed in breastplate red, 
Sings the robin for his bread. 
On the elm-tree that hath shed 

Every leaf; 
While, within, the frost benumbs 
The still sleepy school-boy's thumbs, 
And in consequence his sums 

Come to grief. 

But when breakfast-time hath come, 
And he's crunching crust and crumb. 
He'll no longer look a-glum 
Little dunce ; 



MORNING. 

But be brisk as bees that settle 
On a summer-rose's petal : 
Wherefore, Polly, put the kettle 
On at once. 



EVENING. 

I^ATE! if e'er thy light foot lingers 

On the lawn, when up the fells 
Steals the Dark, and fairy fingers 

Close unseen the pimpernels : 
When, his thighs with sweetness laden, 

From the meadow comes the bee, 
And the lover and the maiden 

Stand beneath the trysting tree : — 

Lingers on, till stars unnumbered 
Tremble in the breeze-swept tarn. 

And the bat that all day slumbered 
Flits about the lonely barn; 



EVENING. 5 

And the shapes that shrink from garish 
Noon are peopling cairn and lea; 

And thy sire is almost bearish 
If kept waiting for his tea : — 

And the screech-owl scares the peasant 
As he skirts some church-yard drear ; 

And the goblins whisper pleasant 
Tales in Miss Rossetti's ear ; 

Importuning her in strangest, 

Sweetest tones to buy their fruits : — 

O be careful that thou changest, 
On returning home, thy boots. 



SHELTER. 

"DY the wide lake's margin I marked her lie — 
The wide, weird lake where the alders sigh — 
A young fair thing, with a shy, soft eye j 

And I deemed that her thoughts had flown 
To her home, and her brethren, and sisters dear, 
As she lay there watching the dark, deep mere, 

All motionless, all alone. 



Then I heard a noise, as of men and boys, 

And a boisterous troop drew nigh. 
Whither now will retreat those fairy feet? 



SHELTER. y 

Where hide till the storm pass by ? 
One glance — the wild glance of a hunted thing — 
She cast behind her ; she gave one spring j 
And there followed a splash and a broadening ring 

On the lake where the alders sigh. 

She had gone from the ken of ungentle men ! 

Yet scarce did I moan for that ; 
For I knew she was safe in her own home then, 
And, the danger past, would appear again, 

For she was a water-rat. 



IN THE GLOAMING. 

TN the Gloaming to be roaming, where the 
crested waves are foaming, 
And the shy mermaidens combing locks that 
ripple to their feet ; 
Where the Gloaming is, I never made the ghost 
of an endeavor 
To discover — but whatever were the hour, it 
would be sweet. 

"To their feet," I say, for Leech's sketch indis- 
putably teaches 
That the mermaids of our beaches do not end 
in ugly tails, 



IN THE GLOAMING. o 

Nor have homes among the corals ; but are shod 
with neat balmorals, 
An arrangement no one quarrels with, as many 
might with scales. 



Sweet to roam beneath a shady cliff, of course 
with some young lady, 
Lalage, Neaera, Haidee, or Elaine, or Mary 
Ann: 
Love, you dear delusive dream you ! Very sweet 
your victims deem you. 
When, heard only by the seamew, they talk 
all the stuff one can. 

Sweet to haste, a licensed lover, to Miss Pinker- 
ton the glover. 
Having managed to discover what is dear 
Neaera's ' size ' : 



lO IN THE GLOAMING. 

P'raps to touch that wrist so slender, as your 
tiny gift you tender, 
And to read you're no offender in those laugh- 
ing hazel eyes. 

Then to hear her call you ' Harry,' when she 
makes you fetch and carry — 
O young men about to marry, what a blessed 
thing it is ! 
To be photographed — together — cased in pretty 
Russia leather — 
Hear her gravely doubting whether they have 
spoilt your honest phiz ! 

Then to bring your plighted fair one first a ring 
— a rich and rare one — 
Next a bracelet, if she'll wear one, and a heap 
of things beside ; 



IN THE GLOAMING. n 

And serenely bending o'er her, to inquire if it 
would bore her 
To say when her own adorer may aspire to 
call her bride! 

Then, the days of courtship over, with your wife 
to start for Dover 
Or Dieppe — and live in clover evermore, what- 
e'er befalls : 
For I've read in many a novel that, unless they've 
souls that grovel, 
Folks prefer in fact a hovel to your dreary 
marble halls : 

To sit, happy married lovers ; Phillis trifling with 
a plover's 
Egg, while Corydon uncovers with a grace the 
Sally Lunn, 



12 IN THE GLOAMING. 

Or dissects the lucky pheasant — that, I think, were 
passing pleasant; 
As I sit alone at present, dreaming darkly of 
a Dun. 



THE PALACE. 

T^HEY come, they come, with fife and drum, 
And gleaming pikes and glancing banners: 

Though the eyes flash, the lips are dumb ; 
To talk in rank would not be manners. 

Onward they stride, as Britons can; 

The ladies following in the Van. 

Who, who be these that tramp in threes 
Through sumptuous Picadilly, through 

The roaring Strand, and stand at ease 
At last 'neath shadowy Waterloo? 

Some gallant Guild, I ween, are they ; 

Taking their annual holiday. 



14 THE PALACE 

To catch the destined train — to pay 

Their willing fares, and plunge within it — 
Is, as in old Romaunt they say, 

s 

With them the work of half-a-minute. 
Then off they're whirled, with songs and shouting, 
To cedared Sydenham for their outing. 

I marked them light, with faces bright 
As pansies or a new-coined florin, 

And up the sunless stair take flight, 
Close-packed as rabbits in a warren. 

Honor the Brave, who in that stress 

Still trod not upon Beauty's dress ! 

Kerchief in hand I saw them stand ; 

In every kerchief lurked a lunch ; 
When they unfurled them, it was grand 

To watch bronzed men and maidens crunch 
The sounding celery-stick, or ram 
The knife into the blushing ham. 



THE PALACE. 15 

Dashed the bold fork through pies of pork; 

O'er hard-boiled eggs the salt-spoon shook ; 
Leapt from its lair the playful cork : 

Yet some there were, to whom the brook 
Seemed sweetest beverage, and for meat 
They chose the red root of the beet. 

Then many a song, some rather long, 
Came quivering up from girlish throats j 

And one young man he came out strong, 
And gave "The Wolf" without his notes. 

While they who knew not song or ballad 

Still munched, approvingly, their salad. 

But ah ! what bard could sing how hard, 
The artless banquet o'er, they ran 

Down the soft slope with daises starred 
And kingcups ! onward, maid with man, 

They flew, to scale the breezy swing. 

Or court frank kisses in the ring. 



1 6 THE PALACE. 

Such are the sylvan scenes that thrill 

This heart ! The lawns, the happy shade, 

Where matrons, whom the sunbeams grill, 
Stir with slow spoon their lemonade ; 

And maidens flirt (no extra charge) 

In comfort at the fountain's marge ! 

Others may praise the "grand displays" 

Where "fiery arch," "cascade," and "comet," 

Set the whole garden in a " blaze" ! 
Far, at such times, may I be from it ; 

Though then the public may be "lost 

In wonder" at a trifling cost. 

Fanned by the breeze, to puff at ease 

My faithful pipe is all I crave: 
And if folks rave about the "trees 

Lit up by fireworks," let them rave. 
Your monster fetes, I like not these ; 
Though they bring grist to the lessees. 



PEACE. 

A STUDY. 
IITE stood, a worn-out City clerk — 

Who'd toiled, and seen no holiday, 
For forty years from dawn to dark — 

Alone beside Caermarthen Bay. 

He felt the salt spray on his lips ; 

Heard children's voices on the sands 
Up the sun's path he saw the ships 

Sail on and on to other lands : 



And laughed aloud. Each sight and sound 
To him was joy too deep for tears ; . 

He sat him on the beach, and bound 
A blue bandanna round his ears : 

2 



l8 PEACE. 

And thought how, posted near his door, 
His own green door on Camden Hill, 

Two bands at least, most likely more, 
Were mmgling at their own sweet will 

Verdi with Vance. And at the thought 
He laughed again, and softly drew 

That Morning Herald that he'd bought 

Forth from his breast, and read it through. 



THE ARAB. 

/^N, on, my brown Arab, away, away ! 
Thou hast trotted o'er many a mile to-day, 
And I trow right meagre hath been thy fare 
Since they roused thee at dawn from thy straw- 
piled lair. 
To tread with those echoless unshod feet 
Yon weltering flats in the noontide heat. 
Where no palm-tree proffers a kindly shade 
And the eye never rests on a cool grass blade; 
And lank is thy flank, and thy frequent cough, 
Oh! it goes to my heart — but away, friend, ofl"! 



20 THE ARAB. 

And yet, ah ! what sculptor who saw thee stand, 
As thou standest now, on thy Native Strand, 
With the wild wind ruffling thine uncombed hair. 
And thy nostril upturned to the od'rous air, 
Would not woo thee to pause, till his skill might 

trace 
At leisure the lines of that eager face ; 
The collarless neck and the coal-black paws 
And the bit grasped tight in the massive jaws ; 
The delicate curve of the legs, that seem 
Too slight for their burden — and, O, the gleam 
Of that eye, so sombre and yet so gay ! 
Still away, my lithe Arab, once more away ! 



Nay, tempt me not, Arab, again to stay ; 
Since I crave neither Echo nor Fun to-day. 
For thy hand is not Echoless — there they are, 
Funy Glowtvonn^ and Echo, and Evening Star, 



THE ARAB. 21 

And thou hintest withal that thou fain would'st 

shine, 
As I read them, these bulgy old boots of mine. 
But I shrink from thee, Arab ! Thou eat'st eel-pie, 
Thou evermore hast at least one black eye ; 
There is brass on thy brow, and thy swarthy hues 
Are due not to nature but handHng shoes ; 
And the bit in thy mouth, I regret to see. 
Is a bit of tobacco-pipe — Flee, child, flee ! 



LINES ON HEARING THE ORGAN. 

/^^RINDER, who serenely grindest 
At my door the Hundredth Psalm, 

Till thou ultimately findest 

Pence in thine unwashen palm: 

Grinder, jocund-hearted Grinder, 
Near whom Barbary's nimble son, 

Poised with skill upon his hinder 
Paws, accepts the proffered bun : 

Dearly do I love thy grinding ; 

Joy to meet thee on the road 
Where -thou prowlest through the blinding 

Dust with that stupendous load. 



LINES ON HEARING THE ORGAN. 

'Neath the baleful star of Sirius, 
When the postmen slowlier jog, 

And the ox becomes delirious, 
And the muzzle decks the dog. 

Tell me by what art thou bindest 
On thy feet those ancient shoon : 

Tell me, Grinder, if thou grindest 
Always, always out of tune. 

Tell me if, as thou art buckling 
On thy straps with eager claws, 

Thou forecastest, inly chuckling. 
All the rage that thou will cause. 

Tell me if at all thou mindest 
When folks flee, as if on wings, 

From thee as at ease thou grindest : 
Tell me fifty thousand things. 



23 



24 LINES ON HEARING THE ORGAN. 

Grinder, gentle-hearted Grinder ! 

Ruffians who led evil lives, 
Soothed by thy sweet strains are kinder 

To their bullocks and their wives: 

Children, when they see thy supple 
Form approach, are out like shots ; 

Half-a-bar sets several couple 
Waltzing in convenient spots ; 

Not with clumsy Jacks or Georges : 
Unprofaned by grasp of man 

Maidens speed those simple orgies, 
Betsey Jane with Betsey Ann. 

As they love thee in St. Giles's 

Thou art loved in Grosvenor Square: 

None of those engaging smiles is 
Unreciprocated there. 



LINES ON HEARING THE ORGAN. 25 

Often, ere thou yet hast hammered 
Through thy four delicious airs, 

Coins are flung thee by enamoured 
Housemaids upon area stairs: 

E'en the ambrosial-whiskered flunkey 
Eyes thy boots and thine unkempt 

Beard and melancholy monkey 
More in pity than contempt. 

Far from England, in the sunny 
South, where Anio leaps in foam, 

Thou wast reared, till lack of money 
Drew thee from thy vine-clad home : 

And thy mate, the sinewy Jocko, 

From Brazil or Afric came, 
Land of simoon and sirocco — 

And he seems extremely tame. 



26 LINES ON HEARING THE ORGAN, 

There he quaffed the undefiled 

Spring, or hung with ape-like glee, 

By his teeth or tail or eyelid, 
To the slippery mango-tree : 

There he wooed and won a dusky 
Bride, of instincts like his own; 

Talked of love till he was husky 
In a tongue to us unknown : 

Side by side 'twas theirs to ravage 

The potato -ground, or cut 
Down the unsuspecting savage 

With the well-aimed cocoa-nut : — 

Till the miscreant Stranger tore him 
Screaming from his blue-faced fair; 

And they flung strange raiment o'er him- 
Raiment which he could not bear. 



LINES ON HEARING THE ORGAN. 

Severed from the pure embraces 
Of his children and his spouse, 

He must ride fantastic races 
Mounted on reluctant sows : 

But the heart of wistful Jocko 
Still was with his ancient flame 

In the nut-groves of Morocco; 
Or if not it's all the same. 

Grinder, winsome grinsome Grinder ! 

They who see thee and whose soul 
Melts not at thy charms, are blinder 

Than a trebly-bandaged mole: 

They to whom thy curt (yet clever) 
Talk, thy music and thine ape, 

Seem not to be joys for ever, 
Are but brutes in human shape. 



27 



28 LINES ON HEARING THE ORGAN. 

'Tis not that thy mien is stately, 
'Tis not that thy tones are soft ; 

'Tis not that I care so greatly 

For the same thing played so oft : 

But I've heard mankind abuse thee ; 

And perhaps it's rather strange, 
But I thought that I would choose thee 
For encomium, as a change. 



CHANGED. 

T KNOW not why my soul is racked 

"Why I ne'er smile as was my wont : 
I only know that, as a fact, 

I don't. 
I used to roam o'er glen and glade 
Buoyant and blithe as other folk : 
And not unfrequently I made 
A joke. 

A minstrel's fire within me burned ; 

I'd sing, as one whose heart must break. 
Lay upon lay : I nearly learned 
To shake. 



30 CHANGED. 



All day I sang ; of love, of fame, 

Of fights our fathers fought of yore, 
Until the thing almost became 
A bore. 

I cannot sing the old songs now ! 

It is not that I deem them low ; 
'Tis that I can't remember how 

They go. 
I could not range the hills till high 

Above me stood the summer moon : 
And as to dancing, I could fly 
As soon. 

The sports, to which with boyish glee 
I sprang erewhile, attract no more; 
Although I am but sixty-three 
Or four. 



CHANGED. 31 

Nay, worse than that, I've seemed of late 

To shrink from happy boyhood — boys 
Have grown so noisy, and I hate 
A noise. 

They fright me, when the beech is green, 

By swarming up its stem for eggs: 
They drive their horrid hoops between 

My legs: — 
It's idle to repine, I know ; 

I'll tell you what I'll do instead : 
I'll drink my arrowroot, and go 
To bed. 



FIRST LOVE. 

/^ MY earliest love, who, ere I numbered 
Ten sweet summers, made my bosom thrill ! 

Will a swallow — or a swift, or some bird — • 
Fly to her and say, I love her still ? 

Say my life's a desert drear and arid, 
To its one green spot I aye recur : 

Never, never — although three times married — 
Have I cared a jot for aught but her. 

No, mine own ! though early forced to leave you. 
Still my heart was there where first we met; 

In those " Lodgings with an ample sea-view," 
Which were, forty years ago, ^' To Let." 



FIRST LOVE. 33 



There I saw her first, our landlord's oldest 
Little daughter. On a thing so fair 

Thou, O Sun, — who (so they say) beholdest 
Everything, — hast gazed, I tell thee, ne'er. 

There she sat — so near me, yet remoter 
Than a star — a blue-eyed bashful imp : 

On her lap she held a happy bloater, 
'Twixt her lips a yet more happy shrimp. 

And I loved her, and our troth we plighted 
On the morrow by the shingly shore : 

In a fortnight to be disunited 
By a bitter fate for evermore. 

O my own, my beautiful, my blue-eyed ! 

To be young once more, and bite my thumb 

At the world and all its cares with ycu, I'd 

Give no inconsiderable sum. 
3 



34 FIRST LOVE. 



Hand in hand we tramped the golden seaweed, 
Soon as o'er the gray cliff peeped the dawn: 

Side by side, when came the hour for tea, we'd 
Crunch the mottled shrimp and hairy prawn: — 

Has she wedded some gigantic shrimper, 
That sweet mite with whom I loved to play ? 

Is she girt with babes that whine and whimper, 
That bright being who was always gay? 

Yes — she has at least a dozen wee-things ! 

Yes— I see her darning corduroys, 
Scouring floors, and setting out the tea-things, 

For a howling herd of hungry boys, 

In a home that reeks of tar and sperm-oil! 

But at intervals she thinks, I know. 
Of these days which we, afar from turmoil, 

Spent together forty years ago. 



FIRST LO VE. 35 

O my earliest love, still iinforgotten. 

With your downcast eyes of dreamy blue ! 

Never, somehow, could I seem to cotton 
To another as I did to you! 



WANDERERS. 

A S o'er the hill we roamed at will, 
My dog and I together, 
We marked a chaise, by two bright bays. 
Slow-moved along the heather: 

Two bays arch-necked, with tails erect 
And gold upon their blinkers : 

And by their side an ass I spied; 
It was a travelling tinker's. 

The chaise went by, nor aught cared I ; 

Such things are not in my way: 
I turned me to the tinker, who 

Was loafing down a by-way : 



WANDERERS. 

I asked him where he lived — a stare 

Was all I got in answer, 
As on he trudged ; I rightly judged 

The stare said "Where I can, Sir." 



I asked him if he'd take a whiff 
Of 'bacco j he acceded ; 

He grew communicative too, 
(A pipe was all he needed,) 

Till of the tinker's life I think 
I knew as much as he did. 



** I loiter down by thorp and town ; 

For any job I'm willing ; 
Take here and there a dusty brown. 
And here and there a shilling. 

*' I deal in every ware in turn, 
I've rings for buddin' Sally 
That sparkle like those eyes of her'n 
I've liquor for the valet. 



37 



38 WANDERERS. 

" I steal from th' parson's strawberry-plots, 
I hide by th' squire's covers ; 
I teach the sweet young housemaids what's 
The art of trapping lovers. 

'* The things I've done 'neath moon and stars 
Have got me into messes ; 
I've seen the sky through prison bars, 
I've torn up prison dresses : 

" I've sat, I ve sighed, I've gloomed, I've glanced 
With envy at the swallows 
That through the window slid, and danced 
(Quite happy) round the gallows : 

"But out again I come, and shew 
My face nor care a stiver ; 
For trades are brisk and trades are slow. 
But mine goes on for ever." 

Thus on he prattled hke a babbling brook. 
Then I, "The sun has slipt behind the hill, 
And my aunt Vivian dines at half-past six." 
So in all love we parted ; I to the Hall, 
They to the village. It was noised next noon 
That chickens had been missed at Syllabub 
Farm. 



SAD MEMORIES. 

n^HEY tell me I am beautiful: they praise 

my silken hair, 
My little feet that silently slip on from stair to 

stair : 
They praise my pretty trustful face and innocent 

gray eye; 
Fond hands caress me oftentimes, yet would 

that I might die ! 

Why was I born to be abhorred of man and 

bird and beast ? 
The bul finch marks me stealing by, and straight 

his song hath ceased ; 



40 . SAD MEMORIES. 

The shrewmouse eyes me shudderingly, then 

flees j and worse than that, 
The house-dog he flees after me — why was I 

born a cat ? 

Men prize the heartless hound who quits dry- 
eyed his native land; 

Who wags a mercenary tail and licks a tyrant 
hand. 

The leal true cat they prize not, that if e'ei 
compelled to roam 

StilJ flies, when let out of the bag, precipi 
tately home. 

They call me cruel. Do I know if mouse or 

song-bird feels? 
I only know they make me light and salutary 

meals : 
And if, as 'tis my nature to, ere I devour 1 

tease 'em, 



SAB MEMORIES. 41 

Why should a low-bred gardener's boy pursue 
me with a besom ? 

Should china fall or chandeliers, or anything 

but stocks — 
Nay stocks, when they're in flowerpots — the cat 

expects hard knocks : 
Should ever anything be missed — milk, coals, 

umbrellas, brandy — 
The cat's pitched into with a boot or anything 

that's handy. 

I remember, I remember, how one night I 

fleeted by. 
And gained the blessed tiles and gazed into 

the cold clear sky. 
I remember, I remember, how my various 

lovers came ; 
And there, beneath the crescent moon, played 

many a little game. 



42 SAD MEMORIES. 

They fought — by good St. Catharine, 'twas a 
fearsome sight to see 

The coal-black crest, the glowering orbs, of one 
gigantic He. 

Like bow by some tall bowman bent at Hast- 
ings or Poictiers, 

His huge back curved, till none observed a ves- 
tiofe of his ears: 



^&^ 



He stood, an ebon crescent, flouting yon ivory 

moon; 
Then raised the pibroch of his race, the Song 

without a Tune : 
Gleamed his white teeth, his mammoth tail 

waved darkly to and fro, 
As with one complex yell he burst, all claws, 

upon the foe. 

It thrills me now, that final Miaow — that weird 
unearthly din : 



SAD MEMORIES. 43 

Lone maidens heard it far away, and leaped 

out of their skin. 
A pot-boy from his den o'erhead peeped with a 

scared wan face ; 
Then sent a random brickbat down, which 

knocked me into space. 

Nine days I fell, or thereabouts : and, had we 

not nine lives, 
I wis I ne'er had seen again thy sausage-shop, 

St. Ives! 
Had I, as some cats have, nine tails, how 

gladly I would lick 
The hand, and person generally, of him who 

heaved that brick ! 

For me they fill the milk-bowl up, and cull the 

choice sardine : 
But ah ! I nevermore shall be the cat I once 

have been ! 



44 SAD MEMORIES. 

The memories of that fatal night they haunt 
me even now : 

In dreams I see that rampant He, and trem- 
ble at that Miaow. 



COMPANIONS. 

A TALE OF A GRANDFATHER. 

T KNOW not of what we pondered 

Or made pretty pretence to talk, 
As, her hand within mine, we wandered 
Tow'rd the pool by the lime-tree walk, 
While the dew fell in showers from the passion 
flowers 
And the blush-rose bent on her stalk. 

I cannot recall her figure : 

Was it regal as Juno's own? 
Or only a trifle bigger 

Than the elves who surround the throne 
Of the Faery Queen, and are seen, I ween, 
By mortals in dreams alone ? 



46 COMPANIONS. 

What her eyes were like I know not : 
Perhaps they were blurred with tears ; 

And perhaps in yon skies there glow not 
(On the contrary) clearer spheres. 
No ! as to her eyes I am just as wise 
As you or the cat, my dears. 

Her teeth, I presume, were " pearly " : 
But which was she, brunette or blonde ? 

Her hair, was it quaintly curly. 

Or as straight as a beadle's wand ? 
That I failed to remark ; — it was rather dark 
And shadowy round the pond. 

Then the hand that reposed so snugly 
In mine — was it plump or spare .? 

Was the countenance fair or ugly ? 
Nay, children, you have me there! 
My eyes were p'haps blurred ; and besides I'd heard 
That it's horribly rude to stare. 



COMPANIONS. 47 

And I — was I brusque and surly ? 
Or oppressively bland and fond? 
Was I partial to rising early ? 
Or why did we twain abscond, 
When nobody knew, from the public view 
To prowl by a misty pond ? 

What passed, what was felt or spoken — 
Whether anything passed at all — 

And whether the heart was broken 

That beat under that shelt'ring shawl — 
(If shawl she had on, which I doubt) — has gone, 
Yes, gone from me past recall. 

Was I haply the lady's suitor? 

Or her uncle ? I can't make out — - 
Ask your governess, dears, or tutor. 

For myself, I'm in hopeless doubt 
As to why we were there, who on earth we were 

And what this is all about. 



BALLAD. 

nPHE auld wife sat at her ivied door, 
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) 

A thing she had frequently done before; 

And her spectacles lay on her aproned knees. 

The piper he piped on the hill-top high, 

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) 
Till the cow said " I die," and the goose asked 

"Why;" 
And the dog said nothing, but searched for fleas. 

The farmer he strode through the square farmyard ; 

(Butter and eggs and a poimd of cheese) 
His last brew of ale was a trifle hard — 

The connection of which with the plot one sees. 



BALLAD. 49 

The farmer's daughter hath frank blue eyes; 

(Butter a?id eggs mid a pound of cheese) 
She hears the rooks caw in the windy skies, 

As she sits at her lattice and shells her peas. 

The farmer's daughter hath ripe red lips ; 

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) 
If you try to approach her, away she skips 

Over tables and chairs with apparent ease. 

The farmer's daughter hath soft brown hair; 

(Butter and eggs and a pou7id of cheese) 
And I met with a ballad, I can't say where, 

Which wholly consisted of lines like these. 

Part 1 1. 

She sat with her hands 'neath her dimpled cheeks, 

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) 

And spake not a word. While a lady speaks 

There is hope, but she didn't even sneeze. 
4 



i;o BALLAD. 

She sat, with her hands 'neath her crimson cheeks ; 

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese') 
She gave up mending her father's breeks, 

And let the cat roll in her best chemise. 

She sat, with her hands 'neath her burning cheeks, 
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) 

And gazed at the piper for thirteen weeks ; 
Then she followed him out o'er the misty leas. 

Her sheep followed her, as their tails did them. 

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) 
And this song is considered a perfect gem. 

And as to the meaning, it's what you jDlease. 



PRECIOUS STONES. 

AN INCIDENT IN MODERN HISTORY * 

IV /TY Cherrystones ! I prize them, 

No tongue can tell how much ! 
Each lady caller eyes them, 

And madly longs to touch ! 
At eve I lift them down, I look 

Upon them, and I cry ; 
Recalling how my Prince * partook' 

(Sweet word !) of cherry-pie ! 

To me it was an Era 

In hfe, that Dejeuner ! 
They ate, they sipped Madeira 

Much in the usual way. 

* " There was a certain climax of British snobbism re- 
corded in the Times, a few years ago, in relation to cherry- 
stones. The Prince of Wales was eating cherries in a public 
garden, and as he dropped the stones, some loyal lady picked 
them up and pocketed them, in order, doubtless, to bequeath 
them as a rich legacy unto her issue." — Chavibers' Journal. 



52 



PRECIOUS STONES. 

Many a soft item there would be, 
No doubt, upon the carte : 

But one made Hfe a heaven to me : 
It was the cherry-tart. 

Lightly the spoonfuls entered 

That mouth on which the gaze 
Of ten fair girls was centred 

In rapturous amaze. 
Soon that august assemblage cleared 

The dish ; and — as they ate — 
The stones, all coyly, reappeared 

On each illustrious plate. 

And when His Royal Highness 
Withdrew to take the air. 

Waiving our natural shyness, 
We swooped upon his chair. 



PRECIOUS STONES. 53 

Policemen at our garments clutched : 
We mocked those feeble powers ; 

And soon the treasures that had touched 
Exalted lips were ours ! 

One large one — at the moment 

It seemed almost divine — 
Was got by that Miss Beaumont: 

And three, O three, are mine ! 
Yes! the three stones that rest beneath 

Glass, on that plain deal shelf, 
Stranger, once dallied with the teeth 

Of Royalty itself. 

Let Parliament abolish 

Churches and States and Thrones : 
With reverent hand I'll polish 

Still, still my Cherrystones ! 



54 PRECIOUS STONES. 

A clod — a piece of orange-peel — 

An end of a cigar — 
Once trod on by a Princely heel, 

How beautiful they are ! 

Years since, I cUmbed Saint Michael — 

His Mount : — you'll all go there 
Of course, and those who like'U 

Sit in Saint Michael's Chair : 
For there I saw, within a frame, 

The pen — O heavens ! the pen — 
With which a Duke had signed his name, 

And other gentlemen. 

"Great among geese," I faltered, 
" Is she who grew that quill ! " 

And, Deathless Bird, unaltered 
Is mine opinion still. 



PRECIOUS STONES. 55 

Yet, sometimes, as I view my three 
Stones with sweet thoughtful brow, 

I think there possibly might be 
E'en greater geese than thou. 



DISASTER. 

^ 'T^WAS ever thus from childhood's hour ! 

My fondest hopes would not decay : 
I never loved a tree or flower 

Which was the first to fade away ! 
The garden, where I used to delve 

Short-frocked, still yields me pinks in plenty 
The pear-tree that I climbed at twelve 

I see still blossoming, at twenty. 

I never nursed a dear gazelle. 

But I was given a parroquet — 
How I did nurse him if unwell ! 

He's imbecile, but lingers yet. 



DISASTER. 57 

He's green, with an enchanting tuft j 
He melts me with his small black eye : 

He'd look inimitable stuffed, 

And knows it— but he will not die! 

I had a kitten — I was rich 

In pets — but all too soon my kitten 
Became a full-sized cat, by which 

I've more than once been scratched and bitten. 
And when for sleep her limbs she curled 

One day beside her untouched plateful, 
And glided calmly from the world, 

I freely own that I was grateful. 

And then I bought a dog— a queen! 

Ah Tiny, dear departing pug! 
She lives, but she is past sixteen 

And scarce can crawl across the rug. 



58 DISASTER. 

I loved her beautiful and kind ; 

Delighted in her pert Bow-wow : 
But now she snaps if you don't mind ; 

'Twere lunacy to love her now. 

I used to think, should e'er mishap 

Betide my crumple-visaged Ti, 
In shape of prowling thief, or trap, 

Or coarse bull-terrier — I should die. 
But ah ! disasters have their use ; 

And life might e'en be too sunshiny : 
Nor would I make myself a goose. 

If some big dog should swallow Tiny. 



CONTENTMENT. 

AFTER THE MANNER OF HORACE. 

■pRIEND, there be they on whom mishap 

Or never or so rarely comes, 
That, when they think thereof, they snap 
Derisive thumbs: 

And there be they who lightly lose 

Their all, yet feel no aching void ; 
Should aught mnnoy them, they refuse 
To be annoyed : 

And fain would I be e'en as these ! 

Life is with such all beer and skittles; 
They are not difficult to please 
About their victuals: 



6o CONTENTMENT. 

The trout, the grouse, the early pea, 
By such, if there, are freely taken ; 
If not, they munch with equal glee 
Their bit of bacon: 

And when they wax a little gay 

And chaff the public after luncheon, 
If they're confronted with a stray 
Policeman's truncheon, 

They gaze thereat with outstretched necks, 

And laughter which no threats can smother, 
And tell the horror-stricken X 
That he's another. 

In snow-time if they cross a spot 

Where unsuspected boys have slid, 
They fall not down — though they would not 
Mind if they did : 



CONTENTMENT. 6 1 

When the spring rose-bud which they wear 

Breaks short and tumbles from its stem, 
No thought of being angry e'er 
Dawns upon them; 

Though 'twas Jemima's hand that placed, 
(As well you ween) at evening's hour. 
In the loved buttonhole that chaste 
• And cherished flower. 

And when they travel, if they find 

That they have left their pocket-compass 
Or Murray or thick boots behind. 
They raise no rumpus, 

But plod serenely on without: 

Knowing it's better to endure 
The evil which beyond all doubt 
You cannot cure. 



62 CONTENTMENT. 

When for that early train they're late, 

They do not make their woes the text 
Of sermons in the Times, but wait 
On for the next; 

And jump inside, and only grin. 

Should it appear that that dry wag, 
The guard, omitted to put in 
Their carpet-bag. 



THE SCHOOLMASTER ABROAD 
WITH HIS SON. 

f~\ WHAT harper could worthily harp it, 
Mine Edward ! this wdde-stretching wold 

(Look out wo/d) with its wonderful carpet 
Of emerald, purple, and gold ! 

Look well at it — also look sharp, it 
Is getting so cold. 

The purple is heather {erica) ; 

The yellow, gorse — called sometimes "whin." 
Cruel boys on its prickles might spike a 

Green beetle as if on a pin. 
You may roll in it, if you would like a 
Few holes in your skin. 



64 THE SCHOOLMASTER ABROAD 

You wouldn't? Then think of how kind you 
Should be to the insects who crave 

Your compassion — and then, look behind you 
At yon barley-ears ! Don't they look brave 

As they undulate? — {imdulafe, mind you, 
From unda, a wave.) 

The noise of those sheep-bells, how faint it 
Sounds here — (on account of our height) ! 

And this hillock itself — who could paint it, 
With its changes of shadow and light ? 

Is it not — (never, Eddy, say "ain't it") — 
A marvellous sight? 

Then yon desolate eerie morasses. 

The haunts of the snipe and the hern — 

(I shall question the two upper classes 
On aqitatiks, when we return) — 

Why, I see on them absolute masses 
Of filix or fern. 



WITH HIS SON. 65 

How it interests e'en a beginner 

(Or tiro) like dear little Ned! 
Is he listening ? As I am a sinner 

He's asleep — he is wagging his head. 
Wake up ! I'll go home to my dinner, 
And you to your bed. 

The boundless ineffable prairie; 

The splendor of mountain and lake 
AVith their hues that seem ever to vary; 

The mighty pine forests which shake 
In the wind, and in which the unwary 
May tread on a snake ; 

And this wold with its heathery garment — 

Are themes undeniably great. 
But — although there is not any harm in't — 

It's perhaps little good to dilate 
On their charms to a dull little varmint 



Of seven or eight. 



/ 



ARCADES AMBO. 

"l^rHY are ye wandering aye 'twixt porch 
and porch, 
Thou and thy fellow — when the pale stars fade 
At dawn, and when the glowworm lights her 
torch, 
O Beadle of the Burlington Arcade? 
— Who asketh why the Beautiful was made ? 
A wan cloud drifting o'er the waste of blue, 
The thistledown that floats above the glade, 
The lilac-blooms of April — fair to view, 
And naught but fair are these; and such, I 
ween, are you. 



ARCADES AM BO. 67 

Yes, ye are beautiful. The young street boys 
Joy in your beauty. Are ye there to bar 
Their pathway to that paradise of toys, 
Ribbons and rings ? Who'll blame ye if ye 

are? 
Surely no shrill and clattering crowd should 
mar 
The dim aisle's stillness, where in noon's mid- 
glow 
Trip fair-haired girls to boot-shop or bazaar ; 
Where, at soft eve, serenely to and fro 
The sweet boy-graduates walk, nor deem the pas- 
time slow. 

And Oh ! forgive me. Beadles, if I paid 
Scant tribute to your worth, when first ye 
stood 
Before me robed in broadcloth and brocade 



eS ARCADES AMBO. 

And all the nameless grace of Beadlehood! 

I would not smile at ye — if smile I could 

Now as erewliile, ere I had learned to sigh : 

Ah, no ! I know ye beautiful and good, 
And evermore will pause as I pass by. 
And gaze, and gazing think, how base a thing 
am I. 



WAITING. 

ii r~\ COME, O come," the mother prayed 

And hushed her babe: "let me behold 
Once more thy stately form arrayed 
Like autumn woods in green and gold 

"I see thy brethren come and go; 
Thy peers in stature, and in hue 
Thy rivals. Some like monarchs glow 
With richest purple : some are blue 

"As skies that tempt the swallows back; 

Or red as, seen o'er wintry seas, 
The star of storm ; or barred with black 
And yellow, like the April bees. 



70 WAITING. 

" Come they and go ! I heed not, I. 
Yet others hail their advent, cling 
All trustful to their side, and fly 
Safe in their gentle piloting 

"To happy homes on heath or hill, 

By park or. river. Still I wait 
And peer into the darkness: still 
Thou com'st not — I am desolate. 

*' Hush ! hark ! I see a towering form ! 
From the dim distance slowly rolled 
It rocks like lilies in a storm. 

And O its hues are green and gold : 

" It comes, it comes ! Ah rest is sweet, 
And there is rest, my babe, for us ! " 
She ceased, as at her very feet 

Stopped the St. John's Wood omnibus. 



PLAY. 

■pLAY, play, while as yet it is day: 

While the sweet sunlight is warm on the brae ! 

Hark to the lark singing lay upon lay, 

While the brown squirrel eats nuts on the spray 

And in the apple-leaves chatters the jay ! 

Play, play, even as they ! 

What though the cowslips ye pluck will decay, 

What though the grass will be presently hay? 

What though the noise that ye make should dismay 

Old Mrs. Clutterbuck over the way ? 

Play, play, for your locks will grow gray; 

Even the marbles ye sport with are clay. 



72 PLA Y. 

Play, ay in the crowded highway: 
Was it not made for you ? Yea, my lad, yea. 
True that the babes you were bid to convey 
Home may fall out or be stolen or stray ; 
True that the tip-cat you toss about may 
Strike an old gentleman, cause him to sway, 
Stumble, and p'raps be run o'er by a dray : 
Still why delay ? Play, my son, play ! 
Barclay and Perkins, not you, have to pay. 

Play, play, your sonatas in A, 
Heedless of what your next neighbor may say ! 
Dance and be gay as a faun or a fay. 
Sing like the lad in the boat on the bay; 
Sing, play — if your neighbors inveigh 
Feebly against you, they're lunatics, eh ? 
Bang, twang, clatter and clang, 
Strum, thrum, upon fiddle and drum j 



PLA Y. 73 



Neigh, bray, simply obey 
All your sweet impulses, stop not or stay ! 
Rattle the * bones,' hit a tin-bottomed tray 
Hard with the fire-shovel, hammer away ! 
Is not your neighbor your natural prey ? 
Should he confound you, it's only in play. 



LOVE. 

/^ANST thou love me, lady? 

I've not learned to woo : 
Thou art on the shady 

Side of sixty too. 
Still I love thee dearly ! 

Thou hast lands and pelf: 
But I love thee merely — 

Merely for thyself. 



Wilt thou love me, fairest? 

Though thou art not fair ; 
And I think thou wearest 

Some one else's hair. 



LOVE. 75 

Thou could'st love, though, dearly : 

And, as I am told, 
Thou art very nearly 

Worth thy weight, in gold. 

Dost thou love me, sweet one? 

Tell me that thou dost! 
Women fairly beat one, 

But I think thou must. 
Thou art loved so dearly; 

I am plain, but then 
Thou (to speak sincerely) 

Art as plain again. 

Love me, bashful fairy ! 

I've an empty purse: 
And I've "moods," which vary; 

Mostly for the worse. 



76 



LO VE. 

Still, I love thee dearly : 
Though I make (I feel) 

Love a little queerly, 
I'm as true as steel. 

Love me, swear to love me 

(As, you know, they do) 
By yon heaven above me 

And its changeless blue. 
Love me, lady, dearly, 

If you'll be so good ; 
Though I don't see clearly 

On what ground you should. 

Love me — ah or love me 
Not, but be my bride ! 

Do not simply shove me 
(So to speak) aside ! 



LOVE. . 77 

P'raps it would be dearly 

Purchased at the price; 
But a hundred yearly 

Would be very nice. 



THOUGHTS AT A RAILWAY STATION. 

''T^IS but a box^ of modest deal ; 

Directed to no matter where : 
Yet down my cheek the teardrops steal — 
Yes, I am blubbering like a seal ; 
For on it is this mute appeal, 
« With care." 

I am a stern cold man, and range 

Apart: but those vague words " With care''\ 
Wake yearnings in me sweet as strange : 
Drawn from my moral Moated Grange, 
I feel I rather like the change 
Of air. 



THOUGHTS AT A 'RAILWAY STATION. 79 

Hast thou ne'er seen rough pointsmen sjDy 

Some simple EngHsh phrase — '"''With care^* 
Or '■'■This side uppermost'''' — and cry 
Like children ? No ? No more have I. 
Yet deem not him whose eyes are dry 
A bear. 

But ah ! what treasure hides beneath 

That lid so much the worse for wear? 
A ring perhaps — a rosy wreath — 
A photograph by Vernon Heath — ■ 
Some matron's temporary teeth 
Or hair! 

Perhaps some seaman, in Peru 

Or Ind, hath stowed herein a rare 
Cargo of birds' eggs for his Sue; 
With many a vow that he'll be true, 
And many a hint that she is too — 
Too fair. 



8o THO UGHTS AT A RAIL WA Y STA TION. 

Perhaps^ — but wherefore vainly pry 

Into the page that's folded there ? 
I shall be better by and bye : 
The porters, as I sit and sigh, 
' Pass and repass — I wonder why 
They stare ! 



ON THE BRINK. 

T WATCHED her as she stooped to pluck 

A wild flower in her hair to twine ; 
And wished that it had been my luck 
To call her mine. 

Anon I heard her rate with mad — 

Mad words her babe within its cot; 
And felt particularly glad 
That it had not. 

I knew (such subtle brains have men) 

That she was uttering what she shouldn't ; 

And thought that I would chide, and then 

I thought I wouldn't: 
6 



32 ON THE BRINK. 

Few could have gazed upon that face, 

Those pouting coral lips, and chided: 
A Rhadamanthus, in my place, 
Had done as I did : 

For wrath with which our bosoms glow 

Is chained there oft by Beauty's spell; 
And, more than that, I did not know 
The widow well. 

So the harsh phrase passed unreproved. 

Still mute — (O brothers, was it sin?) — 
I drank, unutterably moved, 
Her beauty in : 

And to myself I murmured low. 

As on her upturned face and dress 
The moonlight fell, * would she say No — 
By chance, or Yes ? ' 



ON THE BRINK. 83 

She stood so calm, so like a ghost 
Betwixt me and that magic moon, 
That I already was almost 
A finished coon. 

But when she caught adroitly up 

And soothed with smiles her little daughter; 
And gave it, if I'm right, a sup 
Of barley-water j 

And, crooning still the strange sweet lore 
Which only mothers' tongues can utter, 
Snowed with deft hand the sugar o'er 
Its bread-and-butter; 

And kissed it clingingly — (Ah, why 

Don't women do these things in private?) — 
I felt that if I lost her, I 
Should not survive it : 



84 ON THE BRINK, 

And from my mouth the words nigh flew — 

The past, the future, I forgat 'em: 
"O ! if you'd kiss me as you do 
That thankless atom!" 

But this thought came ere yet I spake, 

And froze the sentence on my Hps : 
"They err, who marry wives that make 
Those Httle slips." 

It came like some familiar rhyme, 
Some copy to my boyhood set: 
And that's perhaps the reason I'm 
Unmarried yet. 

Would she have owned how pleased she was, 

And told her love with widow's pride? 
I never found out that, because 
I never tried. 



ON THE BRINK. 85 

Be kind to babes and beasts and birds: 

Hearts may be hard though hps are coral; 
And angry words are angry words : 
And that's the moral. 



"FOREVER." 

TCOREVER ! 'Tis a single word ! 

Our rude forefathers deemed it two: 
Can you imagine so absurd 
A view ? 

Forever ! What abysms of woe 

The word reveals, what frenzy, what 
Despair! For ever (printed so) 
Did not. 

It looks, ah me ! how trite and tame ! 

It fails to sadden or appal 
Or solace — it is not the same 
At all. 



" FORE VERr 87 

O thou to whom it first occurred 

To solder the disjoined, and dower 
Thy native language with a word 
Of power: 

We bless thee ! Whether far or near 
Thy dwelling, whether dark or fair 
Thy kingly brow, is neither here 
Nor there. 

But in men's hearts shall be thy throne, 

While the great pulse of England beats : 
Thou coiner of a word unknown 
To Keats! 

And nevermore must printer do 

As men did long ago ; but run 
" For " into " ever," bidding two 
Be one. 



8S '^ FOREVERr 

Forever! passion-fraught, it throws 

O'er the dim page a gloom, a glamour 
It's sweet, it's strange; and I suppose 
It's grammar. 

Forever ! 'Tis a single word ! 

And yet our fathers deemed it two: 
Nor am I confident they erred; 
Are you? 



UNDER THE TREES. 

^' T TNDER the trees ! " Who but agrees 
That there is magic in words such as these ? 
Promptly one sees shake in the breeze 
Stately lime-avenues haunted of bees : 
Where, looking far over buttercupped leas, 
Lads and "fair shes" (that is Byron, and he's 
An authority) lie very much at their ease j 
Taking their teas, or their duck and green peas, 
Or, if they prefer it, their plain bread and cheese : 
Not objecting at all though it's rather a squeeze 
And the glass is I daresay at 80 degrees. 
Some get up glees, and are mad about Ries 
And Sainton, and Tamberlik's thrilling high Cs; 



90 UNDER THE TREES. 

Or if painter, hold forth upon Hunt and Maclise, 
And the tone and* the breadth of that landscape 

of Lee's ; 
Or if learned, on nodes and the moon's apogees, 
Or, if serious, on something of AKHB's, 
Or the latest attempt to convert the Chaldees ; 
Or in short about all things, from earthquakes to 

fleas. 
Some sit in twos or (less frequently) threes, 
With their innocent lamb's-wool or book on their 

knees. 
And talk, and enact, any nonsense you please. 
As they gaze into eyes that are blue as the seas; 
And you hear an occasional " Harry, don't tease" 
From tlie sweetest of lips in the softest of keys. 
And other remarks, which to me are Chinese. 
And fast the time flees ; till a lady-like sneeze. 
Or a portly papa's more elaborate wheeze, 



UNDER THE TREES. 91 

Makes Miss Tabitha seize on her brown muffa- 

tees, 
And announce as a fact that it's going to. freeze, 
And that young people ought to attend to their Ps 
And their Qs, and not court every form of disease : 
Then Tommy eats up the three last ratifias, 
And pretty Louise wraps her robe de cerise 
Round a bosom as tender as Widow Machree's, 
And (in spite of the pleas of her lorn vis-a-vis) 
Goes and wraps up her uncle — a patient of Skey's 
Who is prone to catch chills, like all old Bengalese : 
But at bedtime I trust he'll remember to grease 
The bridge of his nose, and preserve his rupees 
From the premature clutch of his fond legatees; 
Or at least have no fees to pay any M.D.S 
For the cold his niece caught sitting under the 

Trees. 



MOTHERHOOD. 

OHE laid it where the sunbeams fall 
Unscanned upon the broken wall. 
Without a tear, without a groan, 
She laid it near a mighty stone, 
Which some rude swain had haply cast 
Thither in sport, long ages past. 
And Time with mosses had o'erlaid. 
And fenced with many a tall grass-blade, 
And all about bid roses bloom 
And violets shed their soft perfume. 
There, in its cool and quiet bed. 
She set her burden down and fled : 
Nor flung, all eager to escape. 
One glance upon the perfect shape 



93 



MOTHERHOOD. 

That lay, still warm and fresh and fair, 
But motionless and soundless there. 



No human eye had marked her pass 
Across the linden-shadowed grass 
Ere yet the minster clock chimed seven : 
Only the innocent birds of heaven — 
The magpie, and the rook whose nest 
Swings as the elm-tree waves his crest — 
And the lithe cricket, and the hoar 
And huge-limbed hound that guards the door. 
Looked on when, as a summer wind 
That, passing, leaves no trace behind. 
All unapparelled, barefoot all, 
She ran to that old ruined wall, 
To leave upon the chill dank earth 
(For ah ! she never knew its worth) 
'Mid hemlock rank, and fern, and ling, 
And dews of night, that precious thing! 



94 MOTHERHOOD. 

And there it might have lain forlorn 
From morn till eve, from eve to morn: 
But that, by some wild impulse led. 
The mother, ere she turned and fled. 
One moment stood erect and high; 
Then poured into the silent sky 
A cry so jubilant, so strange. 
That Alice — as she strove to range 
Her rebel ringlets at her glass — 
Sprang up and gazed across the grass; 
Shook back those curls so fair to see, 
Clapped her soft hands in childish glee; 
And shrieked — her sweet face all aglow. 

Her very limbs with rapture shaking — 
"My hen has laid an ^gg, I know; 

"And only hear the noise she's making!" 



MYSTERY. 

T KNOW not if in other's eyes 

She seemed ahnost divine ; 
But far beyond a doubt it Hes 

That she did not in mine. 

Each common stone on which she trod 

I did not deem a pearl: 
Nay it is not a Httle odd 

How I abhorred that girl. 

We met at balls and picnics oft, 
Or on a drawing-room stair ; 

My aunt invariably coughed 
To warn me she was there : 



96 MYSTERY. 

At croquet I was bid remark 
How queenly was her pose, 

As with stern glee she drew the dark 
Blue ball beneath her toes, 

And made the Red fly many a foot: 
Then calmly she would stoop, 

Smiling an angel smile, to put 
A partner through his hoop. 

At archery I was made observe 
That others aimed more near, 

But none so tenderly could curve 
The elbow round the ear: 

Or if we rode, perhaps she did 

Pull sharply at the curb; 
But then the way in which she slid 

From horseback was superb ! 



MYSTERY. 

She'd throw off odes, again, whose flow 
And fire were more than Sapphic; 

Her voice was sweet, and very low ; 
Her singing quite seraphic : 

She 7vas a seraph, lacking wings. 

That much I fi-eely own. 
But, it is one of those queer things 

Whose cause is all unknown — 

(Such are the wasp, the household fly, 

The shapes that crawl and curl 

By men called centipedes) — that I 

Simply abhorred that girl. 
# * * 

No doubt some mystery underlies 

All things which are and which are not : 

And 'tis the function of the Wise 

Not to expound to us what is what, 
7 



97 



98 MYSTERY, 

But let his consciousness play round 
The matter, and at ease evolve 

The problem, shallow or profound, 

Which our poor wits have failed to solve, 

Then tell us blandly we are fools ; 

Whereof we were aware before : 
That truth they taught us at the schools. 

And p'raps (who knows ?) a little more. 

— But why did we two disagree? 

Our tastes, it may be, did not dovetail : 
All I know is, we ne'er shall be 

Hero and heroine of a love-tale. 



FLIGHT. 

r\ MEMORY! that which I gave thee 
To guard in thy garner yestreen — 

Little deeming thou e'er could'st behave thee 
Thus basely — hath gone from thee clean ! 

Gone, fled, as ere autumn is ended 
The yellow leaves flee from the oak — 

I have lost it for ever, my splendid 
Original joke. 

What was it? I know I was brushing 
My hair when the notion occurred : 

I know that I felt myself blushing 

As I thought ' How supremely absurd ! 



lOo FLIGHT. 

*How they'll hammer on floor and on table 

'As its drollery dawns on them — how 
'They will quote it' — I wish I were able 
To quote it just now. 

I had thought to lead up conversation 
To the subject — it's easily done — 

Then let off, as an airy creation 
Of the moment, that masterly pun. 

Let it off, with a flash like a rocket's; 
In the midst of a dazzled conclave, 

While I sat, with my hands in my pockets, 
The only one grave. 

I had fancied young Titterton's chuckles. 
And old Bottleby's hearty guffaws 

As he drove at my ribs with his knuckles, 
His mode of expressing applause : 



FLIGHT. lOI 

While Jean Bottleby— queenly Miss Janet- 
Drew her handkerchief hastily out, 
In fits at my slyness — what can it 

Have all been about? 

I know 'twas the happiest, quaintest 
Combination of pathos and fun: 

But I've got no idea — the faintest — 
Of what was the actual pun. 

I think it was somehow connected 
With something I'd recently read — 

Or heard — or perhaps recollected 
On going to bed. 

What had I been reading? The Standard: 
* Double Bigamy 'j 'Speech of the Mayor.' 

And later — eh ? yes ! I meandered 

Through some chapters of Vanity Fair. 



I02 



FLIGHT. 



How it fuses the grave with the festive ! 

Yet e'en there, there is nothing so fine — 
So playfully, subtly suggestive — 

As that joke of mine. 

Did it hinge upon ' parting asunder ' ? 

No, I don't part my hair v/ith my brush. 
Was the point of it ' hair ' ? Now I wonder ! 

Stop a bit — I shall think of it — hush! 
There's hare^ a wild animal — Stuff ! 

It was something a deal more recondite : 
Of that I am certain enough ; 

And of nothing beyond it. 

Hair — locks / There are probably many 
Good things to be said about those 

Give me time — that's the best guess of any — 
* Lock' has several meanings, one knows. 

Iron locks — iron-gray locks — a ' deadlock' — 
That would set, up an every-day wit: 



FLIGHT. 103 

Then of course there's the obvious * wedlock' ; 
But that wasn't it. 

No ! mine was a joke for the ages ; 

Full of intricate meaning and pith ; 
A feast for your scholars and sages — 

How it would have rejoiced Sidney Smith ! 
'Tis such thoughts that ennoble a mortal j 

And, singling him out from the herd, 
Fling wide immortality's portal — 

But what was the word ? 

Ah me ! 'tis a bootless endeavor. 

As the flight of a bird of the air 
Is the flight of a joke — you will never 

See the same one again, you may swear. 
'Twas my first-born, and O how I prized it ! 

My darling, my treasure, my own ! 
This brain and none other devised it — 
And now it has flown. 



ON THE BEACH. 
LINES BY A PRIVATE TUTOR. 

■\1l T'HEN the young Augustus Edward 

Has reluctantly gone bedvvard 
(He's the urchin I am privileged to teach), 

From my left-hand waistcoat pocket 

I extract a battered locket 
And I commune with it, walking on the beach. 

I had often yearned for something 

That would love me, e'en a dumb thing ; 

But such happiness seemed always out of reach : 
Little boys are off like arrows 
With their little spades and barrows, 

When they see me bearing down upon the beach j 



ON THE BEACH. 105 

And although I'm rather handsome, 
Tiny babes, when I would dance 'em 

On my arm, set up so horrible a screech 
That I pitch them to their nurses 
With (I fear me) muttered curses, 

And resume my lucubrations on the beach. 

And the rabbits won't come nigh me, 

And the gulls observe and fly me, 
And. I doubt, upon my honor, if a leech 

Would stick on me as on others. 

And I know if I had brothers 
They would cut me when we met upon the beach. 

So at last I bought this trinket. 

For (although I love to think it) 
'Twasn't given me, with a pretty little speech : 

No ! I bought it of a pedlar. 

Brown and wizened as a medlar, 
Who was hawking odds and ends about the beach. 



Io6 ON THE BEACH. 

But I've managed, very nearly, 

To believe that I was clearly 
Loved by Somebody, who (blushing like a peach) 

Flung it o'er me saying ' Wear it 

For my sake ' — and, I declare, it 
Seldom strikes me that I bought it on the beach. 

I can see myself revealing 

Unsuspected depths of feeling. 
As, in tones that half upbraid and half beseech, 

I aver with what delight I 

Would give anything — my right eye — 
For a souvenir of our stroll upon the beach. 

O that eye that never glistened 

And that voice to which I've listened 
But in fancy, how I dote upon them each ! 

How, regardless what o'clock it 

Is, I pore upon that locket. 
Which does not contain her portrait, on the beach! 



aV THE BEACH. 107 

As if something were inside it 

I laboriously bide it, 
And a ratber pretty sermon you migbt preach 

Upon Fantasy, selecting 

For your ' instance ' the affecting 
Tale of me and my proceedings on the beach. 

I depict her, ah, how charming! 

I portray myself alarming 
Her by swearing I would ' mount the deadly breach, 

Or engage in any scrimmage 

For a glimpse of her sweet image, 
Or her shadow, or her footprint on the beach. 

And I'm ever ever seeing 

My imaginary Being, 
And I'd rather that my marrow-bones should bleach 

In the winds, than that a cruel 

Fate should snatch from me the jewel 
Which I bouglit for one-and-sixpence on the beach. 



LOVERS, AND A REFLECTION. 

TN moss-prankt dells which the sunbeams flatter 
(And heaven it knoweth what that may mean; 

Meaning, however, is no great matter) 

Where woods are a-tremble, with rifts atween ; 

Thro' God's own heather we wonned together, 
I and my Willie (O love my love) : 

I need hardly remark it was glorious weather, 
And flitterbats wavered alow, above: 

Boati were curtseying, rising, bowing, 
(Boats in that climate are so polite,) 

And sands were a ribbon of green endowing, 
And O the sun-dazzle on bark and bight ! 



LOVERS, AND A REFLECTION. 109 

Thro' the rare red heather we danced together, 
(O love my Willie !) and smelt for flowers : 

I must mention again it was gorgeous weather, 
Rhymes are so scarce in this world of ours: — 

By rises that flushed with their purple favors, 
Thro' becks that brattled o'^ grasses sheen, 

We walked or waded, we two young shavers. 
Thanking our stars we were both so green. 

We journeyed in parallels, I and Willie, 
In fortunate parallels ! Butterflies, 

Hid in weltering shadows of daffodilly 
Or marjoram, kept making peacock eyes: 

Song-birds darted about, some inky 

As coal, some snowy (I ween) as curds ; 

Or rosy as pinks, or as roses pinky — 

They reck of no eerie To-come, those birds ! 



no LOVERS, AND A REFLECTION. 

But they skim over bents which the mill-stream 
washes, 

Or hang in the lift 'neath a white cloud's hem ; 
They need no parasols, no goloshes; 

And good Mrs. Trimmer she feedeth them. 

Then we thrid God's cowslips (as erst His heather) 
That endowed the wan grass with their golden 
blooms ; 

And snapt — (it was perfectly charming weather) — 
Our fingers at Fate and her goddess-glooms : 

And Willie 'gan sing — (O, his notes were fluty; 
Wafts fluttered them out to the white-winged 
sea) — 
Something made up of rhymes that have done 
much duty. 
Rhymes (better to put it) of 'ancientry': 



LOVERS, AND A REFLECTION. iii 

Bowers of flowers encounted showers 

In William's carol — (O love my Willie !) 

Then he bade sorrow borrow from blithe to-morrow 
I quite forget what — say a daffodilly : 

A nest in a hollow, " with buds to follow," 
I think occurred next in his nimble strain ; 

And clay that was " kneaden " of course in Eden — 
A rhyme most novel, I do maintain : 



Mists, bones, the singer himself, love-stories, 

And all least furlable things got "furled;" 

Not with any design to conceal their glories. 

But simply and solely to rhyme with "world." 
* * * 

O if billows and pillows and hours and flowers, 
And all the brave rhymes of an elder day* 



112 LOVERS, AND A REFLECTION. 

Could be furled together, this genial weather, 

And carted, or carried on wafts away. 
Nor ever again trotted out — ay me ! 
How much fewer volumes of verse there'd be ! 



THE COCK AND THE BULL. 

"Y/OU see this pebble-stone ? It's a thing I bought 

Of a bit of a chit of a boy i' the mid o' the day — 

I hke to dock the smaller parts-o'-speech, 

As we curtail the already cur-tailed cur 

(You catch the paronomasia, play o' words?) 

Did, rather, i' the pre-Landseerian days. 

Well, to my muttons. I purchased the concern, 

And clapt it i' my poke, and gave for same 

By way, to-wit, of barter or exchange — 

* Chop ' was my snickering dandiprat's own term — 

One shilling and fourpence, current coin o' the realm. 

0-n-e one and f-o-u-r four 
8 . 



114 THE COCK AND THE BULL. 

Pence, one and fourpence — you are with me, Sir ? — 

What hour it skills not: ten or eleven o' the clock, 

One day (and what a roaring day it was !) 

In February, eighteen sixty nine, 

Alexandrina Victoria, Fidel 

Hm — hm — how runs the jargon? being on throne. 

Such, sir, are all the facts, succinctly put. 
The basis or substratum — what you will — 
Of the impending eighty thousand lines. 
'' Not much in 'em either," quoth perhaps simple 

Hodge. 
But there's a superstructure. Wait a bit. 

Mark first the rationale of the thing : 

Hear logic rivel and levigate the deed. 

That shilling — and for matter o' that, the pence — 

I had o' course upo' me — wi' me say — 

(Mecum^s the Latin, make a note o' that) 



THE COCK AND THE BULL. 115 

When I popped pen i' stand, blew snout, scratched 

ear, 
Sniffed — tch ! — at snuff-box ; tumbled up, he-heed, 
Haw-hawed (not hee-hawed, that's another guess 

thing :) 
Then fumbled at, and stumbled out of, door, 
I shoved the door ope wi' my omoplat ; 
And in vestibulo^ i' the entrance-hall. 
Donned galligaskins, antigropeloes. 
And so forth ; and, complete with hat and gloves. 
One on and one a-dangle i, my hand. 
And ombrifuge (Lord love you !), case o' rain, 
I flopped forth, 'sbuddikins ! on my own ten toes, 
(I do assure you there be ten of them,) 
And went clump-clumping up hill and down dale 
To find myself o' the sudden i' front 0' the boy. 
Put case I hadn't 'em on me, could I ha' bought 
This sort-o'-kind-o'-what-you-might-call toy. 
This pebble-thing, o' the boy-thing ? Q. E. D. 



Ii6 THE COCK AND THE BULL. 

That's proven without aid from mumping Pope, 

Sleek porporate or bloated Cardinal. 

(Isn't it, old Fatchaps? You're in Euclid now.) 

So, having the shilling — having i' fact a lot — 

And pence and halfpence, ever so many o' them, 

I purchased, as I think I said before. 

The pebble {laj)is, lapidis^ -di, -dej?t, -de — 

What nouns 'crease short i' the genitive, Fatchaps, 

eh?) 
O' the boy, a bare-legged beggarly son of a gun, 
For one and fourpence. Here we are again. 

Now Law steps in, big-wigged, voluminous-jawed ; 
Investigates and re-investigates. 
Was the transaction illegal? Law shakes head. 
Perpend, sir, all the bearings of the case. 

At first the coin was mine, the chattel his. 
But now (by virtue of the said exchange 



THE COCK AND THE BULL. 117 

And barter) vice versa all the coin, 

Per juris operationem^ vests 

I' the boy and his assigns till ding o' doom ; 

{In scecula sceculo-o-o-orum ; 

I think I hear the Abate mouth out that.) 

To have and hold the same to him and them . . . 

Confer some idiot on Conveyancing. 

Whereas the pebble and every part thereof, 

And all that appertaineth thereunto, 

Or shall, will, may, might, can, could, would, or 

should, 
(Siibaudi ccete7^a — clap we to the close — 
For what's the good of law in a case o' the kind) 
Is mine to all intents and purposes. 
This settled, I resume the thread o' the tale. 

Now for a touch o' the vendor's quality. 
He says a gen'lman bought a pebble of him, 
(This pebble i' sooth, sir, which I hold i' my hand) — 



Ii8 THE COCK AND THE BULL. 

And paid for't, like a gen'lman, on the nail. 
' Did I o'ercharge him a ha'penny ? Devil a bit. 
Fiddlestick's end ! Get out, you blazing ass ! 
Gabble o' the goose. Don't bugaboo-baby me! 
Go double or quits 1 Yah ! tittup ! what's the 

odds?' 
— There's the transaction viewed i' the vendor's 

light. 

Next ask that dumpled hag, stood snuffling by, 
With her three frowsy-blowsy brats o' babes, 
The scum o' the kennel, cream o' the filth-heap — 

Faugh ! 
Aie, aie, aie, aie ! broTOTororoi, 
('Stead which we blurt out Hoighty-toighty now) — 
And the baker and candlestick-maker, and Jack 

and Gill, 
Bleared Goody this and queasy Gaffer that. 
Ask the schoolmaster. Take schoolmaster first. 



THE COCK AND THE BULL. 119 

He saw a gentleman purchase of a lad 
A stone, and pay for it rite^ on the square, 
And carry it off per saltum, jauntily, 
Propria quce. maribuSy gentleman's property now 
(Agreeably to the law explained above), 
In proprimn ustim, for his private ends. 
The boy he chucked a brown i' the air, and bit 
I' the face the shilling : heaved a thumping stone 
At a lean hen that ran cluck-clucking by, 
(And hit her, dead as nail i' post o' door,) 
Then abiit — what's the Ciceronian phrase? — 
Excessit, evasit, eriipit — off slogs boy ; 
Off in three flea-skips. Hactenus, so far, 
So good, tarn bene. Bene, satis, male, — 
Where was I ? who said what of one in a quag ? 
I did once hitch the syntax into verse : 
Verbum personaie, a verb personal. 
Concordat — ay, 'agrees,' old Fatchaps — cum 
Noi7iinativo, with its nominative, 



I20 THE COCK AND THE BULL. 

Genere, i' point o' gender, mmiero, 

O' number, ef persona, and person. Ut^ 

Instance : Sol ruif, down flops snn, ef and, 

Monies u??ibranticr, snuffs out mountains. Pah ! 

Excuse me, sir, I think I'm going mad. 

You see the trick on't though, and can yourself 

Continue the discourse ad lihiium. 

It takes up about eighty thousand lines, 

A thing imagination boggles at: 

And might, odds-bobs, sir! in judicious hands, 

Extend from here to Mesopotamy. 



VISIONS. 

" She was a phantom,'* etc. 

TN lone Glenartney's thickets lies couched the 

lordly stag, 
The dreaming terrier's tail forgets its customary 

wagj 
And plodding ploughmen's weary steps insensibly 

grow quicker, 
As broadening casements light them on toward 

home, or home-brewed liquor. 

It is in brief the evening — that pure and pleasant 

time. 
When stars break into splendor, and poets into 

rhyme j 



122 VISIONS. 

When in the glass of Memory the forms of loved 
ones shine — 

And when, of course, Miss Goodchild's is prom- 
inent in mine. 

Miss Goodchild ! — Julia Goodchild ! — how gra- 
ciously you smiled 

Upon my childish passion once, yourself a fair- 
haired child : 

When I was (no doubt) profiting by Dr. Crabb's 
instruction, 

And sent those streaky lollipops home for your 
fairy suction ! 

" She wore " her natural " roses, the night when 

first we met" — 
Her golden hair was gleaming 'neath the coercive 

net: 
"Her brow was like the snawdrift," her step was 

like Queen Mab's, 



VISIONS. 123 

And gone was instantly the heart of every boy at 
Crabb's. 

The parlor-boarder chassced tow'rds her on grace- 
ful limb ; 

The onyx deck'd his bosom — but her smiles were 
not for him: 

With me she danced — till drowsily her eyes " began 
to blink," 

And / brought raisin wine, and said, "Drink, 
pretty creature, drink ! " 

And evermore, when winter comes in his garb of 

snows, 
And the returning school-boy is told how fast he 

grows ; 
Shall I — with that soft hand in mine— enact ideal 

Lancers, 
And dream I hear demure remarks, and make 

impassioned answers : — 



124 VISIOA^S. 



I know that never, never may her love for me 

return — 
At night I muse upon the fact with undisguised 

concern — 
But ever shall I bless that day : I don't bless, as 

a rule, 
The days I spent at "Dr. Crabb's Preparatory 

School." 

And yet we too may meet again — (Be still, my 
throbbing heart !) 

Now rolling years have weaned us from jam and 
raspberry-tart. 

One night I saw a vision — 'Twas when musk- 
roses bloom, 

I stood — we stood — upon a rug, in a sumptuous 
dining-room : 

One hand clasped hers — one easily reposed upon 
my hip — 



VISIONS. 125 

And ^' Bless ye ! " burst abruptly from Mr. Good- 
child's lip : 

I raised my brimming eye, and saw in hers an 
answering gleam — 

My heart beat wildly — and I woke, and lo ! it 
was a dream. 



GEMINI AND VIRGO. 

OOME vast amount of years ago, 
Ere all my youth had vanish'd from me, 

A boy it was my lot to know, 

Whom his familiar friends called Tommy. 

I love to gaze upon a child ; 

A young bud bursting into blossom ; 
Artless, as Eve yet unbeguiled, 

And agile as a young opossum : 

And such was he. A calm-brow'd lad. 
Yet mad, at moments, as a hatter : 

Why hatters as a race are mad 
I never knew, nor does it matter. 



GEMINI AND VERGI. 127 

He was what nurses call a " limb j " 
One of those small misguided creatures, 

Who, tho' their intellects are dim, 
Are one too many for their teachers : 

And, if you asked of him to say 
What twice 10 was, or 3 times 7, 

He'd glance (in quite a placid way) 

From heaven to earth, from earth to heaven ; 

And smile, and look politely round, 

To catch a casual suggestion ; 
But make no effort to propound 

Any solution of the question. 

And so not much esteemed was he 

Of the authorities : and therefore 
He fraternized by chance with me. 

Needing a somebody to care for . 



128 GEMINI AND VIRGO. 

And three fair summers did we twain 
Live (as they say) and love together; 

And bore by turns the wholesome cane 
Till our young skins became as leather : 

And carved our names on every desk, 

And tore our clothes, and inked our collars; 

And looked unique and pictureSque, 
But not, it may be, model scholars. 

We did much as we chose to do ; 

We'd never heard of Mrs. Grundy ; 
All the theology we knew 

Was that we mightn't play on Sunday; 

And all the general truths, that cakes 
Were to be bought at four a penny. 

And that excruciating aches 
Resulted if we ate too many: 



GEMINI AND VIRGO. 129 

And seeing ignorance is bliss, 

And wisdom consequently folly, 
The obvious result is this — 

That our two lives were very jolly. 

At last the separation came. 

Real love at that time was the fashion ; 
And by a horrid chance, the same 

Young thing was, to us both, a passion. 

Old Poser snorted like a horse : 

His feet were large, his hands were pimply, 
His manner, when excited, coarse : — 

But Miss P. was an angel simply. 

She was a blushing gushing thing ; 

All — more than all — my fancy painted ; 

Once — when she helped me to a wing 

Of goose — I thought I should have fainted. 
9 



130 GEMINI AND VIRGO. 



The people said that she was blue : 
But I was green, and loved her dearl}^ 

She was approaching thirty-two; 
And I was then eleven, nearly. 

I did not love as others do; 

(None ever did that I've heard tell of;) 
My passion was a byword through 

The town she was, of course, the belle of: 

Oh sweet — as to the toil-worn man 
The far-off sound of rippling river ; 

As to cadets in Hindostan 

The fleeting remnant of their liver — 

To me was Anna ; dear as gold 
That fills the miser's sunless coffers ; 

As to the spinster, growing old, 

The thought — the dream — that she had offers. 



GEMINI AND VIRGO. 131 

I'd sent her little gifts of fruit ; 

I'd written lines to her as Venus j 
I'd sworn unflinchingly to shoot 

The man who dared to come between us : 

And it was you, my Thomas, you. 

The friend in whom my soul confided, 

Who dared to gaze on her — to do, 
I may say, much the same as I did. 

One night, I saw him squeeze her hand j 
There was no doubt about the matter ; 

I said he must resign, or stand 

My vengeance — and he chose the latter. 

We met, we ' planted ' blows on blows : 
We fought as long as we were able : 

My rival had a bottle-nose, 

And both my speaking eyes were sable, 



132 GEMINI AND VIRGO. 

When the school-bell cut short our strife 
Miss P. gave both of us a plaister \ 

And in a week became the wife 

Of Horace Nibbs, the writing-master. 

^ ^ H< :}: % 

I loved her then — I'd love her still, 
Only one must not love Another's : 

But thou and I, my Tommy, will, 

When we again meet, meet as brothers. 

It may be that in age one seeks 

Peace only : that the blood is brisker 

in boys' veins, than in theirs whose cheeks 
Are partially obscured by whisker j 

Or that the growing ages steal 

The memories of past wrongs from us. 

But this is certain — that I feel 

Most friendly unto thee, oh Thomas ! 



GEMINI AND VIRGO. 133 

And wheresoe'er we meet again, 
On this or that side the equator, 

If I've not turned teetotaller then, 

And have wherewith to pay the waiter. 

To thee I'll drain the modest cup, 
Ignite with thee the mild Havannah ; 

And we will waft, while liquoring up. 
Forgiveness to the heartless Anna. 



" There stands a city" 

Ingoldsby. 

"VTEAR by year do Beauty's daughters, 
In the sweetest gloves and shawls, 

Troop to taste the Chattenham waters, 
And adorn the Chattenham balls. 

^ Nulla lion doiianda lauru,^ 

Is that city : you could not, 
Placing England's map before you. 

Light on a more favor'd spot. 

If no clear translucent river 

Winds 'neath willow-shaded paths, 

" Children and adults " may shiver 
All day in "Chalybeate baths": 



" THERE STANDS A CITYr 

And on every side the painter 
Looks on wooded vale and plain 

And on fair hills, faint and fainter 
Outlined as they near the main. 

There I met with him, my chosen 
Friend — the ' long' but not 'stern swell,' 

Faultless in his hats and hosen, 

Whom the Johnian lawns know well:- 

Oh my comrade, ever valued ! 

Still I see your festive face ; 
Hear you humming of "the gal you'd 

Left behind " in massive bass : 

See you sit with that composure 

On the eeliest of hacks. 
That the novice would suppose your 

Manly limbs encased in wax : 

* " The kites know well the long stern swell 
That bids the Romans close." — MacaulAY. 



135 



136 " THERE STANDS A CITY." 

Or anon, when evening lent her 
Tranquil light to hill and vale, 

Urge, towards the table's centre, 
With unerring hand, the squall. 

Ah delectablest of summers ! 

How my heart — that "muffled drum'* 
Which ignores the aid of drummers — 

Beats, as back thy memories come ! 

O among the dancers peerless. 
Fleet of foot, and soft of eye ! 

Need I say to you that cheerless 
Must my days be till I die ? 

At my side she mashed the fragrant 
Strawberry j lashes soft as silk 

Drooped o'er saddened eyes, when vagrant 
Gnats sought watery graves in milk: 



" THERE STANDS A CITY." 

Then we danced, we walked together; 

Talked — no doubt on trivial topics ; 
Such as Blondin, or the weather, 

Which "recalled us to the tropics." 

But — O in the deuxtemps peerless, 
Fleet of foot, and soft of eye ! — 

Once more I repeat, that cheerless 
Shall my days be till I die. 

And the lean and hungry raven, 
As he picks my bones, will start 

To observe ' m. n.' engraven 
Neatly on my blighted heart. 



137 



STRIKING. 

TT was a railway passenger, 

And he lept out jauntilie. 
"Now up and bear, thou stout porter, 
My two chattels to me. 

"Bring hither, bring hither my bag so red, 

And portmanteau so brown: 
(They lie in the van, for a trusty man 

He labelled them London town:) 

" And fetch me eke a cabman bold, 
That I may be his fare, his fare; 
And he shall have a good shilling, 
If by two of the clock he do me bring 
To the Terminus, Euston Square." 



STRIKING. 139 

^' Now, — SO to thee the saints alway, 

Good gentlemen, give luck, — 
As never a cab may I find this day, 

For the cabman wights have struck : 
And now, I wis, at the Red Post Inn, 

Or else at the Dog and Duck, 
Or at Unicorn Blue, or at Green Griffin, 
The nut-brown ale and the fine old gin 

Right pleasantly they do suck." 

"Now rede me aright, thou stout porter, 
What were it best that I should do: 

For woe is me, an' I reach not there 
Or ever the clock strike two." 

" I have a son, a lytel son ; 

Fleet is his foot as the wild roebuck's : 
Give him a shilling, and eke a brown, 
And he shall carry thy fardels down 



I40 STRIKING. 

To Euston, or half over London town, 
On one of the station trucks." 

Then forth in a hurry did they twain fare, 
The gent, and the son of the stout porter, 
Who fled like an arrow, nor turned a hair, 

Through all the mire and muck : 
" A ticket, a ticket, sir clerk, I pray : 
For by two of the clock must I needs away." 
"That may hardly be," the clerk did say, 

"For indeed — the clocks have struck." 



VOICES OF THE NIGHT. 

" The tender Grace of a day that is dead.** 

'T^HE dew is on the roses, 
The owl hath spread her wing ; 

And vocal are the noses 
Of peasant and of king : 

"Nature" in short "reposes"; 
But I do no such thing. 

Pent in my lonesome study 
Here I must sit and muse ; 

Sit till the morn grows ruddy, 
Till, rising with the dews, 

"Jeameses" remove the muddy 
Spots from their masters' shoes. 



142 VOICES OF THE NIGHT. 

Yet are sweet faces flinging 
Their witchery o'er me here : 

I hear sweet voices singing 
A song as soft, as clear, 

As (previously to stinging) 

A gnat sings round one's ear. 

Does Grace draw young Apollo's 
In blue mustachios still? 

Does Emma tell the swallows 
How she will pipe ^nd trill. 

When, some fine day, she follows 
Those birds to the window-sill ? 

And oh ! has Albert faded 
From Grace's memory yet? 

Albert, whose "brow was shaded 
By locks of glossiest jet," 



VOICES OF THE NIGHT. 143 

Whom almost any lady'd 

Have given her eyes to get? 

Does not her conscience smite her 

For one who hourly pines, 
Thinking her bright eyes brighter 

Than any star that shines — 
I mean of course the writer 

Of these pathetic lines ? 

Who knows? As quoth Sir Walter, 
" Time rolls his ceaseless course : 

" The Grace of yore " may alter — 
And then, I've one resource : 

I'll invest in a bran-new halter. 
And I'll perish without remorse. 



LINES SUGGESTED BY THE FOURTEENTH 
OF FEBRUARY. 

Tj^RE the morn the East has crimsoned, 

"When the stars are twinkling there, 
(As they did in Watts' Hymns, and , 

Made him wonder what they were :) 
When the forest-nymphs are beading 

Fern and flower with silvery dew — 
My infallible proceeding 

Is to wake, and think of you. 

When the hunter's ringing bugle 
Sounds farewell to field and copse. 

And I sit before my frugal 
Meal of gravy-soup and chops: 

When (as Gray remarks) "the moping 
Owl doth to the moon complain," 



LINES SUGGESTED BY Uth FEBRUARY. 145 

And the hour suggests eloping — 
Fly my thoughts to you again. 

May my dreams be granted never? 

Must I aye endure affliction 
Rarely realized, if ever, 

In our wildest works of fiction? 
Madly Romeo loved his Juliet; 

Copperfield began to pine 
When he hadn't been to school yet — 

But their loves were cold to mine. 

Give me hope, the least, the dimmest, 

Ere I drain the poisoned cup: 
Tell me I may tell the chymist 

Not to make that arsenic up ! 
Else the heart must cease to throb in 

This my breast ; and when, in tones 

Hushed, men ask, " Who killed Cock Robin 1 " 

They'll be told, "Miss Clara J s." 

10 



A, B, C. 

A is an Angel of blijshing eighteen : 

B is the Ball where the Angel was seen : 

C is her Chaperon, who cheated at cards : 

D is the Deuxtemps, with Frank of the Guards: 

E is her Eye, killing slowly but surely : 

F is the Fan, whence it peeped so demurely 

G is the Glove of superlative kid: 

H is the Hand which it spitefully hid : 

I is the Ice which tlie fair one demanded : 

J is the Juvenile, that dainty who handed : 

K is the Kerchief, a rare work of art: 

L is the Lace which composed the chief part ; 

M is the old Maid who watch'd the chits dance 

N is the Nose she turned up at each glance 



A, B, C. i^y 

O is the Olga (just then in its prime) : 

P is the Partner who wouldn't keep time : 

Q 's a Quadrille, put instead of the Lancers: 

R the Remonstrances made by the dancers: 

S is the Supper, where all went in pairs : 

T is the Twaddle they talked on the stairs: 

U is the Uncle who " thought we'd be goin' : " 

V is the Voice which his niece replied ' No ' in : 
W is the Waiter, who sat up till eight : 

X is his Exit, not rigidly straight: 

Y is a Yawning fit caused by the Ball : 
Z stands for Zero, or nothing at all. 



TO MRS. GOODCHILD. 

npHE night-wind's shriek is pitiless and hollow, 

The boding bat flits by on sullen wing, 
And I sit desolate, like that " one swallow '* 
Who found (with horror) that he'd not 
brought spring : 
Lonely he who erst with venturous thumb 
Drew from its pie-y lair the solitary plum. 

And to my gaze the phantoms of the Past, 

The cherished fictions of my boyhood, rise : 
I see Red Ridinghood observe, aghast, 

The fixed expression of her grandam's eyes ; 
I hear the fiendish chattering and chuckling 
Which those misguided fowls raised at the 
Ugly Duckling. 



TO MRS. GOOD CHILD. 149 

The House that Jack built — and the Malt 
that lay 
Within the House— the Rat that ate the Malt — 
The Cat, that in that sanguinary way 

Punished the poor thing for its venial fault — 
The Worrier-Dog — the Cow with crumpled horn — 
And then — ah yes ! and then — the Maiden all 
forlorn ! 

Mrs. Gurton — (may I call thee Gammer?) 
Thou more than mother to my infant mind ! 

1 loved thee better than I loved my grammar — 
I used to wonder why the Mice were blind, 

And who was gardener to Mistress Mary, 
And what — I don't know still — was meant by 
"quite contrary." 

"Tota contraria," an " Artmdo CaviV 

Has phrased it — which is possibly explicit, 



150 TO MRS. GOOD CHILD. 

Ingenious certainly— but all the same I 

Still ask, when coming on the word, ^What 

is it?' 
There were more things in Mrs. Gurton's eye, 

Mayhap, than are dreamed of in our philosophy. 

No doubt the Editor of ' Notes and Queries ' 
Or ' Things not generally known ' could tell 

The word's real force — my only lurking fear is 
That the great Gammer "didna kenhersel": 

(I've precedent, yet feel I owe apology 
For pa sing in this way to Scottish phraseology). 

Also, dear Madam, I must ask your pardon 
For making this unwarranted digression. 

Starting (I think) from Mistress Mary's garden : 
And beg to send, with every expression 

Of personal esteem, a Book of Rhymes, 
For Master G. to read at miscellaneous times. 



TO MRS. GOODCHILD. 151 

There is a youth, who keeps a ^crumpled 
Horn,' 
(Living next me, upon the self-same story,) 
And ever, 'twixt the midnight and the morn, 

He solaces his soul with Annie Laurie. 
The tune is good ; the habit p'raps romantic ; 
But tending, if pursued, to drive one's neighbors 
frantic. 

And now, — at this unprecedented hour. 

When the young Dawn is "trampling out 
the stars," — 
I hear that youth — with more than usual power 
And pathos — struggling with the first few 
bars. 
And I do think the amateur cornopean 
Should be put down by law — but that's perhaps 
Utopian. 



152 TO MRS. GOOD CHILD. 

Who knows what " things unknown " I might 
have " bodied 
Forth," if not checked by that absurd Too-too ? 
But don't I know that when my friend has 
plodded 
Through the first verse, the second will ensue ? 
.Considering which, dear Madam, I will merely 
Send the before-named book — and am yours 
most sincerely. 



ODE— ^ ON A DISTANT PROSPECT' 

OF MAKING A FORTUNE. 

"\TOW the " rosy morn ajDpearing " 

Floods with light the dazzled heaven; 
And the school-boy groans on hearing 

That eternal clock strike seven: — 
Now the wagoner is driving 

Tow'rds the fields his clattering wain; 
Now the blue-bottle, reviving, 

Buzzes down his native pane. 

But to me the morn is hateful : 

Wearily I stretch my legs, 
Dress, and settle to my plateful 

Of (perhaps inferior) eggs. 



154 ODE— 'ON A DISTANT PROSPECT' 

Yesterday Miss Crump, by message, 

Mentioned " rent," which "p'raps I'd pay;' 

And I have a dismal presage 
That she'll call, herself, to-day. 

Once, I breakfasted off rosewood, 

Smoked through silver-mounted pipes — 
Then how my patrician nose would 

Turn up at the thought of " swipes ! " 
Ale, — occasionally claret, — 

Graced my luncheon then ; — and now 
I drink porter in a garret, 

To be paid for heaven knows how. 

When the evening shades are deepened, 
And I doff my hat and gloves, 

No sweet bird is there to '^ cheep and 
Twitter twenty million loves;" 

No dark-ringleted canaries 

Sing to me of " hungry foam ;" 



OF MAKING A FORTUNE. 

No imaginary " Marys " 

Call fictitious "cattle home." 

Araminta, sweetest, fairest ! 

Solace once of every ill ! 
How I wonder if thou bearest 

Mivins in remembrance still! 
If that Friday night is banished 

From a once retentive mind, 
When the others somehow vanished, 

And we two were left behind : — 

When in accents low, yet thrilling, 

I did all my love declare ; 
Mentioned that I'd not a shilling — 

Hinted that w^e need not care : 
And complacently you listened 

To my somewhat long address, 
And I thought the tear that glistened 

In the downdropt eye said Yes. 



155 



156 ODE—' ON A DISTANT PROSPECT: 

Once, a happy child, I carolled 

O'er green lawns the whole day through, 
Not unpleasingly ajDparelled 

In a tightish suit of blue : — 
What a change has now passed o'er me ! 

Now with what dismay I see 
Every rising morn before me ! 

Goodness gracious patience me ! 

And I'll prowl, a moodier Lara, 

Thro' the world, as prowls the bat, 
And habitually wear a 

Cypress wreath around my hat: 
And when Death snuffs out the taper 

Of my Life (as soon he must), 
1 11 send up to every paper, 

"Died, T. Mivins; of disgust." 



ISABEL. 

"\TOW o'er the landscape crowd the deepen- 
ing shades, 

And the shut lily cradles not the bee : 
The red deer couches in the forest glades, 

And faint the echoes of the slumberous sea: 

And ere I rest, one prayer I'll breathe for thee, 
The sweet Egeria of my lonely dreams: 

Lady, forgive, that ever upon me 

Thoughts of thee linger, as the soft starbeams 
Linger on Merlin's rock, or dark Sabrina's streams. 

On gray Pilatus once we loved to stray, 
And watch far off the glimmering roselight break 



1^8 ISABEL. 

O'er the dim mountain-peaks, ere yet one ray 
Pierced the deep bosom of the mist-clad lake. 
Oh ! who felt not new life within him wake, 
And his pulse quicken, and his spirit burn — 

(Save one we wot of, whom the cold did make 
Feel " shooting pains in every joint in turn,") 
When first we saw the sun gild thy green shores 
Lucerne ? 

And years have past, and I have gazed once more 

On blue lakes glistening amid mountains blue ; 
And all seemed sadder, lovelier than before — 

For all awakened memories of you. 

Oh ! had I had you by my side, in lieu 
Of that red matron, whom the flies would worry, 

(Flies in those parts unfortunately do,) 
Who walked so slowly, talked in such a hurry, 
And with such wild contempt for stops and Lindley 
Murray ! 



ISABEL. 159 

O Isabel, the brightest, heavenliest theme 
That ere drew dreamer on to poesy, 

Since " Peggy's locks " made Burns neglect his 
team, 
And Stella's smile lured Johnson from his t6a — 
I may not tell thee what thou art to me ! 

But ever dwells the soft voice in my ear. 

Whispering of what Time is, what Man might be, 
Would he but " do the duty that lies near," 

And cut clubs, cards, champagne, balls, billiard- 
rooms, and beer. 



LINES SUGGESTED BY THE FOURTEENTH 
OF FEBRUARY 

■pvARKNESS succeeds to twilight: 
Through lattice and through skylight 
The stars no doubt, if one looked out, 
Might be observed to shine : 
And sitting by the embers 
I elevate my members 
On a stray chair, and then and there 
Commence a Valentine. 



Yea ! by St. Valentinus, 
Emma shall not be minus 
What all young ladies, whatever their grade is 
Expect to-day no doubt: 
Emma the fair, the stately — 
Whom 1 beheld so lately, 



LINES SUGGESTED BY \\.th FEBRUARY. i6i 

Smiling beneath the snow-white wreath 
Which told that she was "out." 



Wherefore fly to her, swallow, 
And mention that I'd "follow," 
And " pipe and trill," et cetera, till 
I died, had I but wings : 
Say the North's " true and tender," 
The South an old offender; 
And hint in fact, with your well-known tact, 
All kinds of pretty things. 

Say I grow hourly thinner. 

Simply abhor my dinner — 
Tho' I do try and absorb some viand 
Each day, for form's sake merely; 

And ask her, when all's ended, 

And I am found extended, 

With vest blood-spotted and cut carotid, 

To think on Her's sincerely. 
II 



"HIC VIR, HIC EST." 
/^FTEN, when o'er tree and turret, 

Eve a dying radiance flings, 
By that ancient pile I linger, 

Known familiarly as " King's." 
And the ghosts of days departed 

Rise, and in my burning breast 
All the undergraduate wakens, 

And my spirit is at rest. 

What, but a revolting fiction. 

Seems the actual result 
Of the Census's inquiries 

Made upon the 15th ult. ? 
Still my soul is in its boyhood ; 

Nor of year or changes recks 



^' IIIC VIR, HIC EST." 163 

Though my scalp is ahnost hairless, 
And my figure grows convex. 



Backward moves the kindly dial ; 

And I'm numbered once again 
With those noblest of their species 

Called emphatically ' Men' : 
Loaf, as I have loafed aforetime, 

Through the streets, with tranquil mind, 
And a long-backed fancy-mongrel 

Trailing casually behind : 

Past the Senate-house I saunter. 

Whistling with an easy grace j 
Past the cabbage-stalks that carpet 

Still the beefy market-place ; 
Poising evermore the eye-glass 

In the light sarcastic eye. 
Lest, by chance, some breezy nursemaid 

Pass, without a tribute, by. 



1 64 " HIC VIR, HIC EST." 

Once, an unassuming Freshman, 

Thro' these wilds I wandered on, 
Seeing in each house a College, 

Under every cap a Don : 
Each perambulating infant 

Had a magic in its squall. 
For my eager eye detected 

Senior Wranglers in them all. 

By degrees my education 

Grew, and I became as others ; 
Learned to blunt my moral feelings 

By the aid of Bacon Brothers ; 
Bought me tiny boots of Mortlock. 

And colossal prints of Roe : 
And ignored the proposition 

That both time and money go. 

Learned to work the wary dog-cart 
Artfully thro' King's Parade ; 



"///C: VIR, II I C EST." 165 

Dress, and steer a boat, and sport with 

Amaryllis in the shade: 
Struck, at Brown's, the dashing hazard ; 

Or (more curious sjDort than that) 
Dropped, at Callaby's, the terrier 

Down upon the prisoned rat. 

I have stood serene on Fenner's 

Ground, indifferent to blisters, 
While the Buttress of the period 

Bowled me his peculiar twisters : 
Sung ' We won't go home till morning ' ; 

Striven to part my back-hair straight j 
Drunk (not lavishly) of Miller's 

Old dry wines at 781 : — 

When within my veins the blood ran, 
And the curls were on my brow, 

I did, oh ye undergraduates. 
Much as ye are doing now. 



i66 ''Hic viR, Hic Esrr 

Wherefore bless ye, O beloved ones 
Now unto mine inn must I, 

Your 'poor moralist,'* betake me, 
In my solitary fly.) 



" Poor moralist, and what art thou ? 
A solitary fly." 

Gray. 



BEER. 

TN those old da3^s which poets say were golden— 
(Perhaps they laid the gilding on themselves: 

And, if they did, I'm all the iiiore beholden 
To those brown dwellers in my dusty shelves, 

Who talk to me " in language quaint and olden " 
Of gods and demigods and fauns and elves, 

Pan with his pipes, and Bacchus with his leopards, 

And staid young goddesses who flirt with shep- 
herds :) 

In those old days, the Nymph called Etiquette 
(Appalling thought to dwell on) was not born. 

They had their May, but no May fair as yet. 
No fashions varying as the hues of morn. 



1 68 BEER. 

Just as they pleased they dressed and drank and 
ate, 
Sang hymns to Ceres (their John Barleycorn) 
And danced unchaperoned, and laughed unchecked, 
And were no doubt extremely incorrect. 

Yet do I think their theory was pleasant : 
And oft, I own, my ' wayward fancy roams' 

Back to those times, so different from the present ; 
When no one smoked cigars, nor gave At-homes, 

Nor smote a billiard-ball, nor winged a pheasant, 
Nor ' did' her hair by means of long-tailed combs, 

Nor migrated to Brighton once a year, 

Nor — most astonishing of all — drank Beer. 

No, they did not drink Beer, " which brings me to" 
(As Gil-in said) "the middle of my song." 

Not that " the middle " is precisely true, 

Or else I should not tax your patience long* 



BEER. 169 

If I had said 'beginning,' it might do; 

But I have a disHke to quoting wrong : 
I was unlucky — sinned against, not sinning — 
When Cowper wrote down ' middle' for 'beginning.' 

So to proceed. That abstinence from Malt 
Has always struck me as extremely curious. 

The Greek mind must have had some vital fault, 
That they should stick to liquors so injurious — 

(Wine, water, tempered p'raps with Attic salt) — 
And not at once invent that mild, luxurious, 

And artful beverage. Beer. How the digestion 

Got on without it, is a startling question. 

Had they digestions 1 and an actual body 
Such as dyspepsia might make attacks on ? 

Were they abstract ideas — (like Tom Noddy 
And Mr. Briggs) — or men, like Jones and Jack- 
son t 



lyo BEER. 



Then nectar — was that beer, or whiskey-toddy ? 
Some say the Gaelic mixture, / the Saxon : 
I think a strict adherence to the latter 
Might make some Scots less pig-headed, and fatter. 

Besides, Bon Gaultier definitely shows 

That the real beverage for feasting gods on 

Is a soft compound, grateful to the nose 

And also to the palate, known as ' Hodgson.' 

I know a man — a tailor's son — who rose 

To be a peer : and this I would lay odds on, 

(Though in his Memoirs it may not appear,) 

That that man owed his rise to copious Beer. 

O Beer ! O Hodgson, Guinness, Allsop, Bass ! 

Names that should be on every infant's tongue ! 
Shall days and months and years and centuries 
pass. 

And still your merits be unrecked, unsung? 



BEER. 171 

Oh! I have gazed into my foaming glass, 

And wished that lyre could yet again be strung 
Which once rang prophet-like through Greece, 

and taught her 
Misguided sons that the best drink was water. 

How would he now recant that wild opinion, 
And sing — as would that I could sing — of you ! 

I was not born (alas !) the " Muses' minion," 
I'm not poetical, not even blue: 

And he, we know, but strives with waxen pinion, 
Whoe'er he is that entertains the view 

Of emulating Pindar, and will be 

Sponsor at last to some now nameless sea. 

Oh ! when the green slopes of Arcadia burned 
With all the lustre of the dying day. 

And on Cithaeron's brow the reaper turned, 
(Humming, of course, in his delightful way. 



JJ2 BEER. 



How Lycidas was dead, and how concerned 

The Nymphs were when they saw his lifeless clay ; 
And how rock told to rock the dreadful story 
That poor young Lycidas was gone to glory:) 

What would that lone and laboring soul have given, 
At that soft moment for a pewter pot! 

How had the mists that dimmed his eye been riven, 
And Lycidas and sorrow all forgot! 

If his own grandmother had died unshriven, 
In two short seconds he'd have recked it not; 

Such power hath Beer. The heart which Grief 
hath canker'd 

Hath one unfailing remedy — the Tankard. 

Coffee is good, and so no doubt is cocoa; 

Tea did for Johnson and the Chinamen : 
When ' Dulce est desipere in loco ' 

Was written, real Falernian winged the pen. 



BEER. 173 

When a rapt audience has encored ' Fra Poco ' 

Or ' Casta Diva,' I have heard that then 
The Prima Donna, smiling herself out, 
Recruits her flagging powers with bottled stout. 

But what is coffee, but a noxious berry, 
Born to keep used-up Londoners awake? 

What is Falernian, what is Port or Sherry, 
But vile concoctions to make dull heads ache? 

Nay stout itself — (though good with oysters, 
very) — 
Is not a thing your reading man should take. 

He that would shine, and petrify his tutor. 

Should drink draught AUsop in its " native pewter." 

But hark ! a sound is stealing on my ear — 
A soft and silvery sound — I know it well. 

Its tinkling tells me that a time is near 
Precious to me — it is the Dinner Bell. 



174 BEER. 

blessed Bell ! Thou bringest beef and beer, 
Thou bringest good things more than tongue may 

tell: 
Seared is, of course, my heart — but unsubdued 
Is, and shall be, my appetite for food. 

1 go. Untaught and feeble is my pen : 

But on one statement I may safely venture : 
That few of our most highly-gifted men 

Have more appreciation of the trencher. 
I go. One pound of British beef, and then 

What Mr. Swiveller called a " modest quencher ; " 
That home-returning, I may 'soothly say,' 
" Fate cannot touch me : I have dined to-day." 



ODE TO TOBACCO. 

nPHOU who, when fears attack, 
Bidst them avaunt, and Black 
Care, at the horseman's back 

Perching, unseatest ; 
Sweet when the morn is gray; 
Sweet, when they've cleared away 
Lunch j and at close of day 

Possibly sweetest: 

I have a liking old 
For thee, though manifold 
Stories, I know, are told. 
Not to thy credit; 



176 STRIKING. 

How one (or two at most) 
Drops make a cat a ghost- 
Useless, except to roast — 
Doctors have said it : 

How they who use fusees 
All grow by slow degrees 
Brainless as chimpanzees, 



Meagre as lizards; 



Go mad, and beat their wives; 
Plunge (after shocking lives) 
Razors and carving knives 
Into their gizzards. 

Confound such knavish tricks ! 
Yet know I five or six 
Smokers who freely mix 

Still with their neighbors ; 



STRIKING. 

Jones — who, I'm glad to say, 
Asked leave of Mrs. J.) — 
Daily absorbs a clay 
After his labors. 

Cats may have had their goose 
Cooked by tobacco-Juice ; 
Still why deny its use 

Thoughtfully taken? 
We're not as tabbies are : 
Smith, take a fresh cigar ! 
Jones, the tobacco-jar ! 

Here's to thee. Bacon ! 

12 



177 



DOVER TO MUNICH. 

"PAREWELL, farewell! Before our prow 
Leaps in white foam the noisy channel ; 

A tourist's cap is on my brow, 

My legs are cased in tourist's flannel : 

Around me gasp the invalids — 
The quantity to-night is fearful — 

I take a brace or so of weeds, 

And feel (as yet) extremely cheerful. 

The night wears on : — my thirst I quench 
With one imperial pint of porter; 

Then drop upon a casual bench — 

(The bench is short, but I am shorter)— 



DOVER TO MUNICH. 

Place 'neath my head the havre-sac 
Which I have stowed my little all in, 

And sleep, though moist about the back, 
Serenely in an old tarpaulin. 



179 



Bed at Ostend at 5 a.m. 

Breakfast at 6, and train 6.30, 
Tickets to Kunigswinter (mem. 

The seats unutterably dirty). 

And onward thro' those dreary flats 
We move, with scanty space to sit on, 

Flanked by stout girls with steeple hats, 
And waists that paralyze a Briton ; — 

By many a tidy little town 

Where tidy little Fraus sit knitting; 

(The men's pursuits are, lying down. 
Smoking perennial pipes, and spitting;) 



l8o DOVER TO MUNICH, 

And doze, and execrate the heat, 
And wonder how far off Cologne is, 

And if we shall get aught to eat, 
Till we get there, save raw polonies : 

Until at last the "gray old pile" 

Is seen, is past, and three hours later 

We're ordering steaks, and talking vile 
Mock-German to an Austrian waiter. 



Konigswinter, hateful Konigswinter ! 

Burying-place of all I loved so well ! 
Never did the most extensive printer 

Print a tale so dark as thou couldst tell ! 



In the sapphire West the eve yet lingered, 
Bathed in kindly light those hill-tops cold ; 

Fringed each cloud, and, stooping rosy-iingered, 
Changed Rhine's waters into molten gold ; — 



DOVER TO MUNICH. i8l 

While still nearer did his light waves splinter 
Into silvery shafts the streaming light ; 

And I said I loved thee, Konigswinter, 
For the glory that was thine that night. 

»And we gazed, till slowly disappearing, 

Like a day-dream, passed the pageant by, 

And I saw but those lone hills, uprearing 
Dull dark shapes against a hueless sky. 

Then I turned, and on those bright hopes pondered 
Whereof yon gay fancies were the type ; 

And my hand mechanically wandered 
Towards my left-hand pocket for a pipe. 

Ah ! why starts each eyeball from its socket, 
As, in Hamlet, start the guilty Queen's? 

There, deep-hid in its accustomed pocket, 
Lay my sole pipe, smashed to sm.ithereens ! 



i82 DOVER TO MUNICH, 

On, on the vessel steals; 
Round go the paddle-wheels, 
And now the tourist feels 

As he should ; 
For king-like rolls the Rhine, 
And the scenery's divine. 
And the victuals and the wine 

Rather good. 



From every crag we pass '11 
Rise ujD some hoar old castle ; 
The hanging fir-groves tassel 

Every slope ; 
And the vine her lithe arms stretches 
Over peasants singing catches — 
And you'll make no end of sketches, 

I should hope. 



DOVER TO MUNICH. 183 

We've a nun here (called Therbse), 
Two couriers out of place, 
One Yankee with a face 

Like a ferret's : 
And three youths in scarlet caps 
Drinking chocolate and schnapps — 
A diet which perhaps 

Has its merits. 



And day again declines: 

In shadow sleep the vines, 

And the last ray thro' the pines 

Feebly glows, 
Then sinks behind yon ridge; 
And the usual evening midge 
Is settling on the bridge 

Of my nose. 



1 84 DOVER TO MUNICH. 

And keen's the air and cold, 
And the sheep are in the fold, 
And Night walks sable-stoled 
Thro' the trees ; 

And on the silent river 
The floating starbeams quiver j- 
And now, the saints deliver 
Us from fleas. 



Avenues of broad white houses, 
Basking in the noontide glare j — 

Streets, which foot of traveller shrinks from, 
As on hot plates shrinks the bear; — 

Elsewhere lawns, and vista'd gardens. 
Statues white, and cool arcades. 

Where at eve the German warrior 
Winks upon the German maids ; — 



DOVER TO MUNICH. 185 

Such is Munich : — broad and stately, 

Rich of hue, and fair of form; 
But, towards the end of August, 

Unequivocally warm. 

There, the long dim galleries threading, 

May the artist's eye behold 
Breathing from the "deathless canvass" 

Records of the years of old: 

Pallas there, and Jove, and Juno, 

"Take" once more their "walks abroad," 

Under Titian's fiery woodlands 
And the saffron skies of Claude: 

There the Amazons of Rubens 

Lift the failing arm to strike, 
And the pale light falls in masses 

On the horsemen of Vandyke; 



1 86 DOVER TO MUNICH. 

And in Berghem's pools reflected 
Hang the cattle's graceful shapes, 

And Murillo's soft boy-faces 
Laugh amid the Seville grapes; 

And all purest, loveliest fancies 
That in poets' souls may dwell 

Started into shape and substance 
At the touch of Raphael. 

Lo! her wan arms folded meekly, 

And the glory of her hair 
Falling as a robe around her, 

Kneels the Magdalen in prayer; 

And the white-robed Virgin-mother 
Smiles, as centuries back she smiled, 

Half in gladness, half in wonder, 
On the calm face of her Child : — 



DOVER TO MUNICH. 187 

And that mighty Judgment- vision 

• Tells how man essayed to climb 
Up the ladder of the ages, 

Past the frontier-walls of Time \ 

Heard the trumpet-echoes rolling 

Thro' the phantom-peopled sky, 

And the still voice bid this mortal 

Put on immortality. 

* * * * 

Thence we turned, what time the blackbird 
Pipes to vespers from his perch, 

And from out the clattering city 
Pass'd into the silent church; 

Mark'd the shower of sunlight breaking 
Thro' the crimson panes o'erhead, 

And on pictured wall and window 
Read the histories of the dead : 



1 88 DOVER TO MUNICH. 

Till the kneelers round us, rising, 

Crossed their foreheads and were gone ; 

And o'er aisle and arch and cornice, 
Layer, on layer, the night came on. 



CHARADES. 



I. 



OHE stood at Greenwich, motionless amid 
The ever-shifting crowd of passengers. 

I mark'd a big tear quivering on the lid 

Of her deep-lustrous eye, and knew that hers 
Were days of bitterness. But, " Oh ! what stirs" 

I said " such storm within so fair a breast ? " 
Even as I spoke, two apoplectic curs 

Came feebly up : with one wild cry she prest 

Each singly to her heart, and faltered, " Heaven 
be blest!" 

Yet once again I saw her, from the deck 
Of a black ship that steamed towards Blackwall. 



IQO CHARADES. 



She walked upon my first. Her stately neck 
Bent o'er an object shrouded in her shawl : 
I could not see the tears — the glad tears — fall, 

Yet knew they fell. And "Ah," I said, "not 
puppies, 
Seen unexpectedly, could lift the pall 

From hearts who knoiv what ' tasting misery's cup is 

As Niobe's, or mine, or blighted William Guppy's." 



Spake John Grogblossom the coachman to Eliza 
Spinks the cook : 

"Mrs. Spinks," says he, "I've founder'd: 'Liza 
dear, I'm overtook. 

Druv into a corner reglar, puzzled as a babe un- 
born ; 

Speak the word, my blessed 'Liza ; speak, and 
John the coachman's yourn." 



CHARADES. 191 

Then Eliza Spinks made answer, blushing, to the 
coachman John : 

" John, I'm born and bred a spinster : I've begun 
and I'll gft on. 

Endless cares and endless worrits, well I knows it, 
has a wife: 

Cooking for a genteel family, John, it's a golup- 
tious life ! 



"I gets ;^20 per annum — tea and things o' course 

not reckoned, — 
There's a cat that eats the butter, takes the coals, 

and breaks my second: 
There's soci'ty — James the footman; — (not that I 

look after him ; 
But he's affble in his manners, with amazing 

length of limb ;) — 



192 CHARADES. 

*' Never durst the missis enter here until I've said 

* Come in ' : 
If I saw the master peeping, I'd catch up the 

rolling-pin. 
Christmas-boxes, that's a something; perkisites, 

that's something too; 
And I think, take all together, John, I won't be 

on with you." 

John the coachman took his hat up, for he thought 

he'd had enough ; 
Rubb'd an elongated forehead with a meditative 

cuff; 
Paused before the stable doorway ; said, when there, 

in accents mild, 
" She's a fine young 'oman, cook is ; but that's 

where it is, she's spiled." 



CHARADES. 193 

I have read in some not marvellous tale, 
(Or if I have not, I've dreamed) 

Of one who filled up the convivial cup 
Till the company round him seemed 

To be vanished and gone, tho' the lamps upon 

Their face as aforetime gleamed : 
And his head sunk down, and a Lethe crept 
O'er his powerful brain, and the young man slept. 

Then they laid him with care in his moonlit 
bed: 

But first — having thoughtfully fetched some tar — 
Adorn'd him with feathers, aware that the weather's 

Uncertainty brings on at nights catarrh. 

They stayed in his room till the sun was high : 

But still did the feathered one give no sign 
18 



194 CHARADES. 

Of opening a peeper — he might be a sleeper 
Such as. rests on the Northern or Midland line. 

At last he woke, and with profound 
Bewilderment he gazed around ; 
Dropped one, then both feet to the ground, 
But never spake a word : 

Then to 7ny whole he made his. way ; 
Took one long lingering survey ; 
And softly, as he Stole away. 
Remarked, " By Jove, a bird ! " 



II. 

TF you've seen a short man swagger tow'rds the 
footlights at Shoreditch, 

Sing out " Heave aho ! my hearties," and perpet- 
ually hitch 

Up, by an ingenious movement, trousers innocent 
of brace, 

Briskly flourishing a cudgel in his pleased com- 
panion's face j 

If he preluded with hornpipes each successive thing 
he did, 

From a sun-browned cheek extracting still an os- 
tentatious quid ; 

And expectorated freely, and occasionally cursed : — 



196 CHARADES. 

Then have you beheld, depicted by a master's 
hand, my first. 

O my countryman ! if ever from thy arm the 

bolster sped, 
In thy school-days, with precision at a young 

companion's head ; 
If 'twas thine to lodge the marble in the centre ^^ 

of the ring, 
Or with well-directed pebble make the sitting hen 

take wing : 

Then do thou — each fair May morning, when the 

blue lake is as glass. 
And the gossamers are twinkling star-like in the 

beaded grass ; 
When the mountain-bee is sipping fragrance from 

the bluebell's lip, 



CHARADES. 197 

And the bathing-woman tells you, Now's your time 
to take a dip : 

When along the misty valleys field-ward winds 

the lowing herd, 
And the early worm is being dropped on by the 

early bird ; 
And Aurora hangs her jewels from the bending 

rose's cup, 
And the myriad voice of Nature calls thee to 

my second up: — 

Hie thee to the breezy common, where the mel- 
ancholy goose 

Stalks, and the astonished donkey finds that he 
is really loose ; 

There amid green fern and furze-bush shalt thou 
soon my whole behold, 



198 CHARADES. 

Rising 'bull-eyed and majestic' — as Olympus' queen 
of old : 

Kneel, — at a respectful distance, — as they kneeled 

to her, and try 
With judicious hand to put a ball into that ball-less 

eye : 
Till a stiffness seize thy elbows, and the general 

public wake — 
Then return, and, clear of conscience, walk into 

thy well-earned steak. 



III. 

"PRE yet "knowledge for the million" 

Came out " neatly bound in boards " ; 
When like Care upon a pillion 

Matrons rode behind their lords: 
Rarely, save to hear the Rector, 

Forth did younger ladies roam ; 
Making pies, and brewing nectar 

From the gooseberry-trees at home. 

They'd not dreamed of Pau or Vevay ; 

Ne'er should into blossom burst 
At the ball or at the levee ; 

Never come, in fact, my first-. 
Nor illumine cards by dozens 

With some labyrinthine text, 



2 00 



CHARADES. 



Nor work smoking-caps for cousins 
Who were pounding at my next. 

Now have skirts, and minds, grown ampler ; 

Now not all they seek to do 
Is create upon a sampler 

Beasts which Buffon never knew : 
But their venturous muslins rustle 

O'er the cragstone and the snow, 
Or at home their biceps muscle 

Grows by practising the bow. 

Worthy they those dames who, fable 

Says, rode " palfreys " to the war 
With some giant Thane, whose " sable 

Destrier caracoled " before j 
Smiled, as — springing from the war-horse 

As men spring in modern * cirques ' — 
He plunged, ponderous as a four-horse 

Coach, among the vanished Turks: — 



CHARADES. 20 1 

In the good times when the jester 

Asked the monarch how he was, 
And the landlady addrest her 

Guests as ' gossip ' or as ' coz ' ; 
When the Templar said, "Gramercy," 

Or, "'Twas shrewdly thrust, i' fegs,'' 
To Sir Halbert or Sir Percy 

As they knocked him off his legs ; 

And, by way of mild reminders 

That he needed coin, the Knight 
Day by day extracted grinders 

From the howling Israehte: |^ 

And my whole in merry Sherwood 

Sent, with preterhuman luck. 
Missiles — not of steel but firwood — 

Thro' the two-mile-distant buck. 



IV. 

"PVENING threw soberer hue 
Over the blue sky, and the few 
Poplars that grew just in the view 
Of the hall of Sir Hugo de Wynkle : 
"Answer me true," pleaded Sir Hugh, 
(Striving some hard-hearted maiden to woo,) 
"What shall I do. Lady, for you? 
'T^ill be done, ere your eye may twinkle. 
Shall I borrow the wand of a Moorish enchanter, 
And bid a decanter contain the Levant, or 
The brass from the face of a Mormonite ranter? 
Shall I go for the mule of the Spanish Infantar — 
(That r, for the sake of the line, we must grant 

her,)— 
And race with the foul fiend, and beat in a canter, 



CHARADES. 203 

Like that first of equestrians Tarn o' Shanter ? 
I talk not mere banter — say not that I can't, or 
By this my first — (a Virginia planter 
Sold it me to kill rats)— I will die instanter." 
The Lady bended her ivory neck, and 
Whispered mournfully, " Go for — my second." 
She said, and the red from Sir Hugl^'s cheek 

fled, 
And " Nay," did he say, as he stalked away 

The fiercest of injured men : 
"Twice have I humbled my haughty soul, 
And on bended knee have I pressed my 
whole — 
But I never will press it again ! " 



V. 

/~\N pinnacled St. Mary's 

Lingers the setting sun; 
Into the streets the blackguards 

Are skulking one by one : 
Butcher and Boots and Bargeman 

Lay pipe and pewter down ; 
And with wild shout come tumbling out 

To join the Town and Gown. 

And now the undergraduates 
Come forth by twos and threes, 

From the broad tower of Trinity, 
From the green gate of Caius: 

The wily bargeman marks them, 
And swears to do his worst ; 



CHARADES. 205 

To turn to impotence their strength, 
And their beauty to my first. 

But before Corpus gateway 

My second first arose, 
When Barnacles the Freshman 

Was pinned upon the nose : 
Pinned on the nose by Boxer, 

Who brought a hobnailed herd 
From Barnwell, where he kept a van. 
Being indeed a dogsmeat man. 
Vendor of terriers, blue or tan, 

And dealer in viy third. 

'Twere long to tell how Boxer 
Was 'countered' on the cheek. 

And knocked into the middle 
Of the ensuing week: 



2o6 CHARADES. 

How Barnacles the Freshman 

Was asked his name and college; 

And how he did the fatal facts 
Reluctantly acknowledge. 

He called upon the Proctor 

Next day at half-past ten j 
Men whispered that the Freshman cut 

A different figure then : — 
That the brass forsook his forehead, 

The iron fled his soul, 
As with blanched lip and visage wan 
Before the stony-hearted Don 

He kneeled upon my whole. 



VI. 

OIKES, housebreaker, of Houndsditch, 

Habitually swore ; 
But so surpassingly profane 

He never was before, 
As on a night in winter, 

When — softly as he stole 
In the dim light from stair to stair, 
Noiseless as boys who in her lair 
Seek to surprise a fat old hare — 
He barked his shinbone, unaware 

Encountering my whole. 

As pours the Anio plainward. 

When rains have swollen the dykes, 

So, with such noise, poured down my first 
Stirred by the shins of Sikes. 



2o8 CHARADES. 

The Butler Bibulus heard it; 

And straightway ceased to snore, 
And sat up, like an Q.g^ on end. 

While men might count a score : 
Then spake he to Tigerius, 

A Buttons bold was he : 
''Buttons, I think there's thieves about; 
Just strike a light and tumble out; 
If you can't find one go without. 

And see what you may see." 

But now was all the household. 

Almost, upon its legs, 
Each treading carefully about 

As if they trod on eggs. 
With robe far-streaming issued 

Paterfamilias forth; 
And close behind him, — stout and true 

And tender as the North, — 



CHARADES. 

Came Mrs. P., supporting 

On her broad arm her fourth. 

Betsy the nurse, who never 

From largest beetle ran, 

And— conscious p'raps of pleasing caps— 

The housemaids, formed the van: 

And Bibulus the butler. 

His calm brows slightly arched; 

(No mortal wight had ere that night 

Seen him with shirt unstarched;) 

And Bob the shockhaired knife-boy. 

Wielding two Sheffield blades, 

And James Plush of the sinewy legs. 

The love of lady's maids: 

And charwoman and chaplain 

Stood mingled in a mass. 

And "Things," thought he of Houndsditch, 

''Is come to a pretty pass." 
14 



209 



2IO CHARADES. 

Beyond all things a baby 

Is to the school-girl dear; 
Next to herself the nursemaid loves 

Her dashing grenadier; 
Only with life the sailor 

Parts from the British flag; 
While one hope lingers, the cracksman's fingers 

Drop not his hard-earned swag. 

But, as hares do my second 

Thro' green Calabria's copses, 
As females vanish at the sight 

Of short-horns and of wopses ; 
So, dropping forks and teaspoons. 

The pride of Houndsditch fled, 
Dumbfoundered by the hue and cry 

He'd raised up overhead. 



CHARADES. 

They gave him — did the judges — 

As much as was his due. 
And, Saxon, shouldst thou e'er be led 

To deem this tale untrue ; 
Then — any night in winter. 

When the cold north wind blows, 
And bairns are told to keep out cold 

By tallowing the nose : 
When round the fire the elders 

Are gathered in a bunch. 
And the girls are doing crochet, 

And the boys are reading Punch: — 
Go thou and look in Leech's book ; 

There haply shalt thou spy 
A stout man on a staircase stand, 
With aspect anything; but bland. 
And rub his right shin with his hand, 

To witness if I lie. 



PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

A RT thou beautiful, O my daughter, as the 

budding rose of April ? 
Are all thy motions music, and is poetry throned 

in thine eye? » 

Then hearken unto me ; and I will make the bud 

a fair flower, 
I will plant it upon the bank of Elegance, and 

water it with the water of Cologne ; 
And in the season it shall " come out," yea bloom, 

the pride of the parterre; 
Ladies shall marvel at its beauty, and a Lord shall 

pluck it at the last. 



PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. 



213 



OF PROPRIETY. 

Study first Propriety: for she is indeed the Pole- 
star 

Which shall guide the artless maiden through the 
mazes of Vanity Fair ; 

Nay, she is the golden chain which holdeth to- 
gether Society ; 

The lamp by whose light young Psyche shall ap- 
proach unblamed her Eros. 

Verily Truth is as Eve, which was ashamed being 
naked ; 

Wherefore doth Propriety dress her with the fair 
foliage of artifice : 

And when she is drest, behold ! she knoweth not 
herself again. — 



214 PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

I walked in the Forest; and above me stood 
the Yew, 

Stood like a slumbering giant, shrouded in im- 
penetrable shade; 

Then I pass'd into the citizen's garden, and marked 
a tree dipt into shape, 

(The giant's locks had been shorn by the Dalilah- 
shears of Decorum;) 

And I said, " Surely nature is goodly ; but how 
much goodlier is Art ! " 

I heard the wild notes of the lark floating far 
over the blue sky. 

And my foolish heart went after him, and, lo ! 
I blessed him as he rose ; 

Foolish ! for far better is the trained boudoir 
bulfinch, 

Which pipeth the semblance of a tune, and me- 
chanically draweth up water : 



PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. 215- 

And the reinless steed of the desert, though his 
neck be clothed with thunder, 

Must yield to him that danceth and *moveth in 
the circles' at Asdey's. 

For verily, O my daughter, the world is a mas- 
querade, 

And God made thee one thing that thou mightest 
make thyself another : 

A maiden's heart is as champagne, ever aspiring 
and struggling upwards, 

And it needed that its motions be checked by the 
silvered cork of Propriety: 

He that can afford the price, his be the precious 
treasure, 

Let him drink deeply of its sweetness, nor grumble 
if it tasteth of the cork. 



2i6 PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. 



OF FRIENDSHIP. 

Choose judiciously thy friends ; for to discard them 

is undesirable, 
Yet it is better to drop thy friends, O my daugh- 
ter, than to drop thy ' H's'. 
Dost thou know a wise woman ? yea, wiser than 

the children of light? 
Hath she a position ? and a title ? and are her 

parties in the Morning Post ? 
If thou dost, cleave unto her, and give up unto 

her thy body and mind ; 
Think with her ideas, and distribute thy smiles 

at her bidding: 
So shalt thou become like unto her; and thy 

manners shall be "formed," 



PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. 217 

And thy name shall be a Sesame, at which the 

doors of the great shall fly open : 
Thou shalt know every Peer, his arms, and the 

date of his creation, 
His pedigree and their intermarriages, and cousins 

to the sixth remove : 
Thou shalt kiss the hand of Royalty, and lo! in 

next morning's papers^ 
Side by ^ide with rumors of wars, and stories of 

shipwrecks and sieges, 
Shall appear thy name, and the minutiae of thy 

head-dress and petticoat. 
For an enraptured public to muse upon over their 

matutinal muffin. 



2i8 PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. 



OF READING. 

Read not Milton, for he is dry; nor Shakespeare, 

for he wrote of common Hfe: 
Nor Scott, for his romances, though fascinating, 

are yet intelligible: 
Nor Thackeray, for he is a Hogarth, a photographer 

who flattereth not : 
Nor Kingsley, for he shall teach thee that thou 

shouldest not dream, but do. 
Read incessantly thy Burke; that Burke who, 

nobler than he of old, 
Treateth of the Peer and Peeress, the truly Sub- 
lime and Beautiful : 
Likewise study the " creations" of " the Prince of 

modern Romance"; 
Sigh over Leonard the Martyr, and smile on 

Pelham the puppy : 



PRO VERBIAL PHILOSOPII V. 



219 



Learn how " love is the dram -drinking of ex- 
istence "; 
And how we " invoke, in the Gadara of our still 

closets, 
The beautiful ghost of the Ideal, with the simple 

wand of the pen." 
Listen how Maltravers and the orphan "forgot 

all but love," 
And how Devereux's family chaplain "made and 

unmade kings " : 
How Eugene Aram, though a thief, a liar, and 

a murderer, 
Yet, being intellectual, was among the noblest of 

mankind. 
So shalt thou live in a world peopled with 

heroes and master-spirits ; 
And if thou canst not realize the Ideal, thou shalt 

at least idealize the Real. 



CARMEN S^CULARE. 

MDCCCLIII. 

" Quicquid agunt homines, nostrl est farrago libelli'* 

A CRIS hyems jam venit : hyeras genus omne 
perosa 
Foemineum, et senibus glacies non sequa rotundis : 
Apparent rari stantes in tramite glauco ; 
Radit iter, cogitque nives, sua tela, juventus. 
Trux matrona ruit, multos dominata per annos, 
Digna indigna minans, glomeratque volumina cru- 

. rum ; 
Parte senex alia, prcerepto forte galero. 
Per plateas bacchatur ; eum chorus omnis agrestum 
Ridet anhelantem frustra, et jam jamque tenentem 
Quod petit ; illud agunt venti prensumque resorbent. 



CARMEN S^CULARE, 221 

Post, 11 bi compositus tandem votique potitus 
Sedit humij flet crura tuens nive Candida lenta, 
Et vestem laceram, et venturas conjugis iras : 
Itque domum tendens duplices ad sidera palmas, 
Corda miser, desiderio perfixa galeri. 

At juvenis (sed cruda viro viridisque juventus) 
Quaerit bacciferas, tunica pendente,* tabernas : 
Pervigil ecce Baco furva depromit ab area 
Splendidius quiddam solito, plenumque saporem 
Laudat, et antiqua jurat de stirpe Jamaicse. 
O' fumose puer, nimium ne crede Baconi : 
Manillas vocat ; hoc praetexit nomine caules. 

Te vero, cui forte dedit maturior aetas 
Scire potestates herbarum, te quoque quanti 



* tunicd pendente : h. e. ' suspensa e brachio.* Quod 
procuratol-ibus illis valde, ut ferunt, displicebat. Dicunt 
vero morem a barbaris tractum, urbem Bosporiam in fl. 
[side habitantibus. Bacciferas tabernas : id q. nostri vocant 
" tobacco-shops." 



222 CARMEN S^CULARE. 

Circumstent casus, paucis (adverte) docebo. 
Praecipue, seu raptat amor te simplicis herbse,* 
Seu potius tenui Miisam meditaris avena, 
Procuratorem fugito, nam ferreus idem est. 
Vita semiboves catulos, redimicula vita 
Candida : de cceIo descendit aw^e czavrov. 
Nube vaporis item conspergere praeter emites 
Jura vetant, notumque furens quid femina possit: 
Odit enim dulces succos anus, odit odorem ; 
Odit Lethaei diffusa volumina fumi. 

Mille modis reliqui fugiuntque feruntque laborem. 
Hie vir ad Eleos, pedibus talaria gestans, 
Fervidus it latices, et nil acquirit eundo : f 
Ille petit virides (sed non e gramine) mensas, 



* herbce — avend. Duo quasi genera artis poeta videtur 
distinguere. ' Weed/ ' pipe,' recte Scaliger. 

\ nil acqtiirit eundo. Aqua enim aspera, et radentibus 
parum habilis. Immersum hie aliquem et vix aut ne vix 
quidem extractum refert schol. 



CARMEN S^CULARE. 223 



Pollicims meliora patri, tormentaque* flexus 
Per labyrintheos plus quam mortalia tentat, 
Acre tuens, loculisque pilas immittit et aufert. 

Sunt alii, quos frigus aquae, tenuisque phaselus 
Captat, et aequali surgentes ordine remi. 
His edura cutis, nee ligno rasile tergum ; 
Par saxi sinus : esca boves cum robore Bassi. 
Tollunt in numerum fera brachia, vique feruntur 
Per fluctus : sonuere vi^e clamore secundo : 
At picea de puppe Tremens immane bubulcus 
Invocat exitium cunctis, et verbera rapto 
Stipite defessis onerat graviora • caballis. 

Nil humoris egent alii. Labor arva vagari. 
Flectere Indus equos, et amantem deviaf currum. 

* tormenta p. t[. mortalia. Eleganter, ut solet, Peile, 
'unearthly cannons.' (Cf. Ainsw. D. s. z'.) Perrecondita 
autem est quaestio de lusubus illorum ten> rrum, neque in 
Smithii Diet. Class, satis elucidata. Consuie omnino Kentf. 
de Bill. Locullsy bene vertas ' pockets.' 

\ amaniejii devia. Quorsum hoc, qucerunt Interpretes. 
Suspicor equidem respiciendos, vv. 19-23, de procuratoribus. 



224 CARMEN SyECULARE. 

Nosco purpureas vestes, clangentia nosco 
Signa tubae; et caudas inter virgulta caninas. 
Stat venator equus, tactoque ferocior armo 
Surgit in arrectum, vix auditurus habenam ; 
Et jam prata fuga superat, jam flumina saltu. 
Aspicias alios ab iniqua sepe rotari 
In caput, ut scrobibus quae sint fastigia quaerant : 
Eque rubis aut amne pigro trahere humida crura, 
Et foedam faciem, defloccatumque galerum. 

Sanctius his animal, cui quadravisse rotundum* 
Musae suadet amor, Camique ardentis imago, 
Inspicat calamos contracta fronte malignos, 
Perque Mathematicum i^elagus, loca turbida, an- 

helat. 
Circum dirus "Hymers," nee pondus inutile, 

" Lignum," 



* quadr. rof^n. — Cami ard. imo. Quadrando enim rotundum 
(Ang. * squai-ing the circle') Camum accendere, juvenes inge- 
nui semper nitebantur. Fecisse vero quemquam non liquet. 



CARMEN S^CULARE. 225 



" Salmoque," et pueris tu detestate, " Colenso," 
Horribiles visu formae j livente notatae 
Ungue omnes insignes aure canina.* 
Fervet opus; tactitura pertentant gaudia pectus 
Tutorum ; " pulchrumque mori," dixere, " legendo." 
Nee vero juvenes facere omnes omnia possunt. 
Atque unum memini ipse, deus qui dictus amicis, 
Et multum referens de rixatorej secundo, 
Nocte terens ulnas ac scrinia, solus in alto 
Degebat tripode ; arcta viro vilisque supellex ; 
Et sic torva tuens, pedibus per mutua nexis, 
Sedit, lacte mero mentem mulcente tenellam. 
Et fors ad summos tandem venisset honores ; 
Sed rapidi juvenes, queis gratior usus equorum, 
Subveniunt, siccoque vetant inolescere libro. 
Improbus hos Lector pueros, mentumque virili 

* rure canina. Iteriim audi Peile, ' dog's-eared.' 
f rixatore. non male Heins. cum Aldina, 'wrangler.' 
15 



226 CARMEN SJECULARE. 

Laevius, et durae gravat inclementia Mortis :* 
Suetos (agmen iners), aliena vivere quadra,t 
Et lituo vexare viros, calcare caballos. 
Tales mane novo saepe admiramur euntes 
Torquibus in rigidis et pelle Libystidis ursag j 
Admiramur opust tunicae, vestemque|| sororem 
Iridis, et crurum non enarrabile tegmen. 
Hos inter comites implebat pocula sorbis 
In felix puer, et sese recreabat ad ignem, 
" EvoE, §Basse," fremens : dum velox praeterit cetas ; 

* Mortis. Verbum generali fere sensu dictum inveni. 
Suspicor autem poetam virum quendam innuisse, qui ciirrus, 
caballos, id genus omne, mercede non minima locaret. 

I alienci qttadrd. Sunt qui de pileis Academicis accipiunt. 
Rapidiores enim suas fere amittebant. Sed judicet sibi lector. 

\ opus tuniccSy ' shirt-work.' Alii opes. Perperam. 

I vestem. Nota proprietatem verbi. ' Vest,' enim apud 
politos id. q. vulgo * waistcoat' appellatur. Quod et feminse 
usurpabant, ut hodiernae, fibula revinctum, teste Virgilio : 
' crines nodantur in aurum, 
Aurea purpuream subnectit fibula vestem.' 

§ Basse, eft. Interpretes illud Iloratianum, " Bassum 
Threicia vincat amystide." Non perspexere viri docti al- 
teram hie alludi, Anglicanse originis, neque ilium, ut per- 
hibent, a potu aversum. 



CARMEN S^CULARE. 227 

Venit sumnia dies ; et Junior Optimus exit. 

Saucius at juvenis nota intra tecta refugit, 
Horrendum ridens, lucemque miserrimus odit: 
Informem famulus laqueum pendentiaque ossa 
Mane videt, refugitque feri meminisse magistri. 

Di nobis meliora ! Modum re servat in omni 
Qui sapit : baud ilium semper recubare sub umbra, 
Haud semper madidis juvat impallescere chartis. 
Nos numerus sumus, et libros consumere nati j 
Sed requies sit rebus ; amant alterna Camenae. 
Nocte dieque legas, cum tertius advenit annus : 
Tum libros cape ; claude fores, et prandia defer. 
Quartus venit: ini,* rebus jam rite paratis, 
Exultans, et coge gradum conferre magistros. 

His animadversis, fugies immane Barathrum. 
His, operose puer, si qua fata aspera rumpas, 
Tu rixator eris. Saltem non crebra revises 

* Int. Sic nostri, * Go in and win.' rebus^ ' subjects.' 



2 28 CARMEN S^CULARE. 

Ad stabulum,* et tota moerens carpere juventa ; 
Classe nee amisso nil profectura dolentem 
Tradet ludibriis te plena leporis HiRUDO.f 



* crebra r. a. stabulum. " Turn up year after year at 
the old diggings, {i. e. the Senate House,) and be plucked," 
etc. Peile. Quo quid jejunius? 

f Classe — Hirudo. Obscurior allusio ad picturam quan- 
dam (in collectione viri, vel plusquam viri, Punchii reposi- 
tam,) in qua juvenis custodera stationis moerens alloqui- 
tur. 



DIRGE. 

"Dr. Birch's young friends will reassemble to-day, Feb. isi 

'\T THITE is the wold, and ghostly 

The dank and leafless trees ; 
And 'M's and 'N's are mostly 

Pronounced like 'B's and *D's: 
'Neath bleak sheds, ice-encrusted, 

The sheep stands, mute and stolid . 
And ducks find out, disgusted. 

That all the ponds are solid. 

Many a stout steer's work is 
(At least in this world) finished; 

The gross amount of turkeys 
Is sensibly diminished : 



230 DIRGE. 

The holly-boughs are faded, 
The painted crackers gone ; 

Would I could write, as Gray did, 
An Elegy thereon ! 

For Christmas-time is ended : 

Now is "our youth" regaining 
Those sweet spots where are "blended 

Home-comforts and school-training." 
Now they're, I dare say, venting 

Their grief in transient sobs, 
And I am " left lamenting " 

At home, with Mrs. Dobbs. 

O Posthumus ! '^ Fugaces 

Labuntur anni" still; 
Time robs us of our graces, 

Evade him as we will. 



DIRGE. 231 

We were the twins of Siam : 

Now she thinks me a bore, 
And I admit that / am 

Indined at times to snore. 

I was her own Nathaniel ; 

With her I took sweet counsel, 
Brought seed-cake for her spaniel, 

And kept her bird in groundsel : 
We've murmured, " How delightful 

A landscape seen by night, is," — 

And woke next day in frightful 
Pain from acute bronchitis. 
« 4: « 4: 

But ah ! for them, whose laughter 
We heard last New Year's Day, — 

(They recked not of Hereafter, 
Or what the Doctor 'd say,) — 



232 DIRGE. 

For those small forms that fluttered 

Moth-like around the plate, 
When Sally brought the buttered 



Buns in at half-past eight ! 



Ah for the altered visage 

Of her, our tiny Belle, 
Whom my boy Gus (at his age !) 

Said was a " deuced swell ! " 
P'raps now Miss Tickler's tocsin 

Has caged that pert young linnet ; 
Old Birch perhaps is boxing 

My Gus's ears this minute. 

Yet, though your young ears be as 
Red as mamma's geraniums. 

Yet grieve not ! Thus ideas 
Pass into infant craniums. 



DIRGE. 233 

Use not complaints unseemly; 

Tho' you must work like bricks; 
And it is cold, extremely, 

Rising at half-past six. 

Soon sunnier will the day grow, 

And the east wind not blow so ; 
Soon, as of yore, L' Allegro 

Succeed II Penseroso : 
Stick to your Magnall's Questions 

And Long Division sums ; 
And come — with good digestions — 

Home when next Christmas comes. 

THE END. 



TA INK'S 

Notes on England. 

Translated by W. F. RAE. 

With an Introduction by the translator, and a steel portrait 
of the author. Post 8vo. $2.50. 

Special attention is invited to the fact that this vol- 
ume contains a hiograjphical slcetch and steel ^portrait of 
the author. 

The book has been hailed with the same enthusiasm that 
greeted the author's monumental work on English literature. 



" In acntoness of observation and sagracity of comment, he rivals the 'English Traits' 
of Mr. Emerson, while in freshness of feeling and warm himian sympathies, he surpasses 
that remarkable volume." — "New York Tribune. 

" Excels all previous travellers' accounts of England and its people," — Boston Com- 
monwealth. 

"Among the best, as it is the most agreeable, observing, and just ever written by a 
foreigner on that difficult subject." — Philadelphia Press. 

" There is not a book of his that is not great 

His 'Notes on England ' are very comiirehensive, vcrj piqua?it, very fresh, and of course 
rery rea()able. Indeed, tliey are of captivating interest ; there are few novels one WQuld 
take up in preference. There is not a page that is not bright, informing and quotable." 
— N. Y. Evening Mail. 

" Surpasses any previous work on the English and England, in penetration, candor, 
breadth of view, and appliration. . . . We cannot point to any book on England 
that is more instructive." — N. Y. Observer.' 

"The channing piquancy of style, the sharp conceits, the fervor of imagination which 
converts a description of a grimy dock into a prose poem, the acute observation, the good 
natured mixture of commendation and criticism, the fertility of antithesis and suggestion 
which always has some recollection or foreign fact ready to fit into the present picture- 
all these well known characteristics of the brilliant Frenchman will be found in this little 
volume. " — Noricich Bulletin. 
' •' Will be read with interest and enjoyment by everybody." — BrooKhjn Union. 

" A brief review can do but scanty justice to Mr. Taine's book. We can only deal 

with it in its broad results, while its charm lies in its dotnil Even were 

France more prolific of literature than it is at the moment, no one should neglect to read 
these letters in their collected form." — London Times. 

" This volume possesses great vah e as a rapid, succinct, comprehensive sketch and 
critical sui-vey of our English society and institutions. Even those who have made a 
careful study of their country will be benefited by the perusal of a book like thi-;, where 
the whole field of English life is brought, as it were, within the compass of a glauce." — 
London Examitier. 

HOLT & WILLIAMS, 

25 Bond Street, New Tor\^. 



LEGENDS 



Patriarchs and Prophets, 



Current at the East, collected by Baring-Gould. Crown 8vo, $2. 



" There are few Bible readers who have not at some time wished for 

just such a volume This is a thoroughly interesting book, 

and will be seized with avidity by all students of the Bible." — The 
CortgregationaUst. 

' ' Mr. Baring-Gould has . . . had very good success in making 
books of entertaining reading, but we believe he has never succeeded 
better than in these Legends," — Nation. 

' ' Selected with admirable judgment and taste, .... has no 
dullness and no insipidity." — Dover Morning Star. 

'' They have the magical charm of the Arabian Nights." — Methodist. 

' ' Most of these Legends are curious and valuable, as embodjdng 
some piece of wisdom or wit, and many will be recognized as the origi- 
nals of anecdotes now current, " — Springfield Republican. 

" We venture to predict that few books will be more delightful to a 
great part of our readers," — New York Evening Mail. 

"It will be his (the reader's) own loss if he foregoes the pleasure 
and the profit of reading this entertaining volume." — London Saturday 
Review. 

" It is profitable as well as entertaining to read his book. After its 
initial page is perused it is difficult to lay it down tiU the closing page 
is scanned." — Pittsburgh Christian Advocate. 

" It contains much that is beautiful, much that is instructive, a great 
deal that is extravagant, amusing, and absurd." — Liberal Christian. 

HOLT & WILLIAMS, 

25 Bond Street, New York. 



In every lihrary^ jL>?^JZi^'^ or private^ one of the first 
necessiiies is a standard work o?i Literature. The critics 
unite i'ti giving the first J9Z«C6 to 

TAINE'S ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



THE NATION saj^s.- " It is the best history of English literature that has 
yet been produced." 

THE LONDON SPECTATOR sar/s : "No English book can bear compari- 
son with it for richness of thought, for variety, keenness, and sound- 
ness of critical judgment, for the brilliancy with which the material and 
the moral features of each age are sketched." 

THE N. Y. TRIBUNE sai/s : "It is no less extraordinary in its style than 
original in its intention. It is a new phenomenon in English letr 
ters. It occupies a unique place in -the language. The works of VVarton, 
Johnson, Hallam, and other eminent writers on the literary history of Eng 
land have as little with it in common as a museum of stuffed animals witt, 
a forest of singing-birds and sportful quadrupeds." 

THE N. Y. >A7'ORLD sut/s : "It is the only reai historv of the literature 
of our mother-tongue." 

THE N. Y. EVENING POST sat/s : "No history of our own literature, 
equally learned, honest, and entertaining, has ever been WTitten." 

SCRIBNER'S MONTHLY saj/s : "There can nowhere else be found a 
survey of English Literature so comprehensive, so accurate, and always s( 
brilliant." 

TH E GALAXY sajjs: " A mine of thought as well as a perfect gTillery of literar} 
pictures of men and societies. No cultivated person can dispense witi 
reading it." 

REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER, in the Christian Union, saj/-? 
"This work ought to be not only in all public libraries, but in every hous; 
of culture throughout the land." 

Mr. GEORGE WM. CURTIS says: "The delicate and sympathetic In- 
sight, the mastery of the subject, and the vivid and picttircsque style- 
unparalleled in such a work— seem to me equally remarkable." 

Mr. BAYARD TAYLOR says: "I consider it the best history of Eng- 
lish Literature in existence." 

Mr. WM. CULLEN BRYANT says: " I concur fully with the favor- 
able opinion expressed concerning it by Mr. Taylor." 



REV. DR. PRIME, u, u,r .^. i . > Ml^,h.u^.■.l;. .vr///.v ; -It is a ^s.n,u.•, i,u work. Ir 
shows a power of niKilysi.s ati(l a vivid dt'lincatiou of Kccnea in past agi,-- 
which are almo.st uncqtialled in the rango of historical literature." 

PROF. P. R. LOUNSBERY, OF YALE COLLEGE, myi : "I wis! 
it could be introduced into every household." 

PROF. L. CLARK SEELYE, OF AMHERST COLLEGE, «aj/.^ 
•• It is the best History of English Literature that has been written. Evct ; 
educated man ought to read it." 

PROF. MOSES COIT TYLER, OF THE UNIVERSITY OF 
MICHIGAN, sa>/s : "It forms an intellectual era in a man's lifr 
to make the acquaintance of Taine — especially of his masterful and in 
spiring work on English Literature. Of that marvelloui^ book, it must l» 
said that it is henceforth simply indispensable to the students of our 
Literature."" 

THE BOSTON ADVERTISER say.i : " This' grand work has a glory of iti? 
own, which culture and tasta will not fail to discover." 

THE BOSTON POST saysf " Tt is the most readable history of Engli^! 
literature that has erer been written." 

THE SPRINGFIELD REPUBLICAN taj/s: "It is the portrait of 
the English people from the days of Hengist and Horsa to those of Gladstone 
and D'Israeli — a masterly work." 

THE NEW. ORLEANS TIMES sai/s : "It is really a hi.story of t!,. 
English, people— a present face to face account with the race standin 
before you. Taine has the dramatic power of Charles Reade, with the bol: 
ness and brilliancy of Carlyle. In his hands history is made as attract! \ 
as a romance." 

THE METHODIST /lai/s: "No well-furnished Ubrary can be without the> 
volumes. Beyond question, it is the very best hi.story of English literature. 

THE LIBERAL CHRISTIAN saj/s : "We recommend it to all Bciiw: 
rea.k-rs and thinkers as equally instructive and charming." 



TAINE'S ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Complete in 7 wo Volumes octavo. 
Cloth, $10: Half Calf or Half Morocco, $15. 



HOLT & WILLIAMS, PUBLISHERS, 
25 Bond Street, New York. 



^i 



LEISTJ 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




FLY-LEAVES 



C/ • o • w • 



/ 



Holt &Williams Fublishe 



New York 



'///C^ 



% 




